


This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Thing

by sunbaeknim



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Attempt at Humor, Cliche, Failed attempt at humor, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, M/M, Minor Character Death, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 22:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16962270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunbaeknim/pseuds/sunbaeknim
Summary: Prompt #:16Title: This Is Why We Can't Have Nice ThingPairing: Baekhyun/ChanyeolSummary: Baekhyun and Chanyeol are both in a completed relationship. And like any other complicated relationship, chaos ensues.





	This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Thing

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, this is a mess. I want to apologize to my prompter for ruining your prompt. I really hope you at least found this story likeable :(
> 
> Also thanks to the mods for always being patient enough to deal with my extension requests and my beta for always being there and trying her best to fullfill what I want. I'm sorry if I rushed you to read my work when you're clearly have a lot to do, I will always be thankful of you, that's for sure. I haven't written in a while so my writing might get rusty, but I really tried my best for this.
> 
> Well, enjoy!

The screech from the radio could be heard piercing through the tranquillity of that one fine morning. It’s 7:30 right now; the residents in the area were busy and occupied with their own stuffs. The neighborhood was slowly awaken, citing that it’s another day for them. Kyungsoo ignored all of them, instead focusing on searching for a radio station that suited his taste. And after a while, he finally found a station that aired his favorite songs. He turned the volume louder and started banging his head in tune with the hip-hop song that was currently spitting all kinds of vulgar words, not minding the slightest bit about the odd stares coming his way from the residents.

He was so into the song that he didn’t realize someone was making their way towards the car, and only looked at the glass to find Baekhyun glaring at him from him window. He immediately turned down the volume and pushed the mirror down.

“What-”

“Change your seat. I’ll drive today,” he said, not giving Kyungsoo the chance to finish his words. He frowned, weirded out by his abrupt request, but then shrugged it away. He’s not going to decline a request from someone who willingly volunteered to be his Uber of the day, after all. They quickly switched their seat, and now Kyungsoo was comfortably seated on the passenger seat, staring at Baekhyun whom fiddled with the gear handle and steering wheel.

Suddenly, he pressed the pedal, making the engine revved loudly in the neighborhood. By now, all the residents that were in close parameter to them were surprised by the sudden roar, and some of them were making their way towards them.

Kyungsoo, as much as the whole thing was amusing to him, couldn’t help but felt anxious at the sight of more people who making their way towards their direction.

“Uh, Baekhyun-” he said while attempting to slap Baekhyun’s arm, but then Baekhyun stopped. Throwing the most innocent smile he could muster and raised his hand in a greeting manner, asking for apology from them. Some of the residents were cursing at them, their voices were faint but they could hear it clear enough. Some just shook their heads and proceeded to mind their own businesses.

After all of them were finally scattered far away from the car, Kyungsoo turned to face Baekhyun, who was already looking at him. He raised his eyebrows when he saw a smirk slowly appearing on his face, and before he could even shoot him a question, Baekhyun’s hand had started pressing the honk continuously.

Of course, the sound would most likely attracted everyone who were nearby them. And it certainly caught the attention of someone from Baekhyun’s house.

He saw someone fumbled with the curtains of Baekhyun’s room and opened the window. The person behind it was the exact replica of the guy sitting beside him, if not mature. He couldn’t help but cackled when he realized why Baekhyun was acting up in the first place.

“Baekhyun, shut the fuck up!” Baekhyun’s brother, Baekbeom, yelled from inside the room.

Baekhyun mischievously let out his head from the window and made kissy faces at his brother.

“Love you too, hyung!” he replied, and without wasting anymore moments he pressed one foot on the pedal to start driving away.

Kyungsoo was still cackling, the scene just now were totally entertaining to him. It was to the point that Baekhyun wanted to laugh along too, just because his laugh was so loud and contagious. Instead he didn’t comment on anything though. But still, there was still a tiny smile on his face

“That was classic,” Kyungsoo finally said after he was done (and a bit tired) from laughing out loud. This time, Baekhyun’s smile turn into a face splitting grin, making Kyungsoo cracked up again.

 

\---

 

After bidding Kyungsoo a goodbye, Baekhyun made his way to his locker. Just as he expected, he received some stares all the way to his locker. It used to intimidate him back then, when he was still young and new and definitely naive, but now he just simply learnt to ignore it. Instead, he embraces it.

Just at that moment, a group of jocks were walking in a straight line, kinda like a boy band in photoshoots and CFs, and he couldn’t help but rolled his eyes. Girls mostly swooned at them, boys meanwhile adored them. There was a hint of jealousy too, but to be honest, for him those feelings were just stupid because unlike him, all the boys in this school were mostly pretty popular (because of their looks of course).

And now, as they were passing him by, all 5 of them turned to stare at Baekhyun and instantly started snickering.

“Weirdo,” he had caught one of them said, and Baekhyun stopped in his tracks. Baekhyun had heard many snide remarks and rude comments directed towards him. As if those words even affected him. They were stupid if they thought that calling him “weirdo” and such would make him cry and beg them to stop messing with him. Baekhyun had never cared about people’s opinion about him, and he certainly won’t give two shits for someone like those jocks.

Yet, something wicked came across his mind. An idea, a brilliant one in fact. Baekhyun’s mouth slowly stretched into a smirk before he turned around and followed them through the corridor.

Baekhyun always knew that people were kind of wary about him, because of his infamous personality of snapping at everyone coming at his way, so when they saw him marching down the corridor they tried to squeeze themselves as much as they could to let him walk. Ignoring all eyes that were following his movements, they watched with bated breath when Baekhyun jumped on the back of one of the tallest in the group and started tackling him.

Everyone quickly gathered around them, watching as Baekhyun clung tightly on the boy’s back and then fighting against each other. Some unlocked their phones and switched on the camera app to start recording the accident unfolding before their eyes. Typical students nowadays. As much as Baekhyun didn’t care about people’s opinion, he did hope that someone didn’t end up uploading it on Youtube and made it went viral. Baekhyun was obviously not ready to handle his popularity outside school.

He hopped off from the guy’s back and huffed. Oh boy, that was a lot of energy, he couldn’t help but thought. The guy, who Baekhyun realized now was Kim Jongin, was staring wide-eyed at him. He wasn’t sure what that stare mean, he seemed kind of startled by his attack, but then it changed into fury. His ears were red, probably from embarrassment and anger, but Baekhyun being Baekhyun, he just kept calm and raised his eyebrow at him.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he seethed and nearly raised his hand to hit him, but then was stopped by his fellow friends. Baekhyun snorted. This guy in front of him was well-known for his ‘masculine’ look, and judging by his reaction, Baekhyun was pretty much ruining his good image by pulling the stunt. He smirked smugly.

Baekhyun shrugged. “I was saving you from a Grim Reaper. He was trailing after you and looked ready to eat your souls any second.”

There was no response. Most of them turned to each other, unsure if they just heard that right. Jongin meanwhile was giving a death stare that totally had zero effect on Baekhyun. Of course people there would’ve thought that Baekhyun was just bullshitting, since it’s the 20’s, there’s no ghost and all that spooky shit like that anymore.

But apparently, one of their peers paled at the mention of Death Eater. “I-is that true?” he whispered, glancing alarmingly to his left and right, expecting something will come out any second and rip all their heads off. It took Baekhyun a second to realize that it was Huang Zitao, an exchange student from China who apparently, was scared of everything despite his sharp look.

Baekhyun tried so hard to hold in his snorts, he really did, but then he caught sight of another one of their pal trying to smother his laughter. He looked up and stared at Baekhyun. They locked their gazes for a moment, with Baekhyun staring blankly at him. A small smile appeared on the guy’s face, and all the facade Baekhyun tried to build just crumbled down.

Baekhyun, despite the rumours of him being in a satanist cult, was just another ordinary human being. And human being had a lot of weaknesses. It just so happened that one of his weaknesses was one of the group’s member and Jongin’s bestfriend.

“What was all this commotion?” a medium height woman who was clad in pink uniform strutted in. Upon hearing that, all the students quickly dispersed and went back to minding their own businesses, except for Baekhyun and the group of the tall jocks. The teacher glared at all of them and turned to Jongin.

“You, go to detention right after your lessons. And you,” she said, not giving any chance for the other boy to reason himself. She then turned to Baekhyun, who slowly raised his hand when she gave Baekhyun a pair of stink eyes.

“I swear I didn’t do anything.” he added, giving her the most innocent look he could muster. But it all went down the drain when Jongin started edging himself towards him only to be held by his friends. He smirked, and he didn’t even bother to wipe out the look even when the teacher asked him to come to her office.

Jongin also had a smirk on his face. “Well, Baekhyun. Good luck,” he said confidently and honestly, he was stupid of thinking that Baekhyun would sway at that. He rolled his eyes, staring quietly when all of his stuck-up friends followed after him. One of them stopped in his tracks for a moment, the same guy that was staring at Baekhyun a while ago. The guy who was one of Baekhyun’s weaknesses. He looked at Baekhyun in the eyes and Baekhyun in turn did the same thing to him. Baekhyun had no idea what they were doing actually, whether the guy in front of him wanted to say something, anything to him.

“Hey, Chanyeol! Come on!” someone shouted, breaking their reverie. Chanyeol looked at him with a small smile that held meaning and started to walk away, definitely not missing the way Baekhyun smiled back at him.

 

\--

 

The recess period was nothing unusual. Same old, same old, with same students who lined up patiently at each station, most were already seated at their usual tables, and of course the same delicious food that they served for students.

Well, at least for Baekhyun. He never complained much about their school’s cafeteria on how they serve their food, unlike any other students. He’s not gonna lie, it still tasted like shit, but Baekhyun knew better than to complain. It was only to hold his stomach from hunger for 8 hours, he could just eat like a pig when he gets home later. Just on rare occasions did he brought his mother’s meal from home to school, and that rare occasions includes today.

Kyungsoo had groaned when he saw Baekhyun pulling out the Tupperware box from his backpack, and rolling his eyes just because he had to. To say that Baekhyun was offended was an understatement, “Excuse me for having another friend besides you.” He scoffed, and ignored the way Kyungsoo smiled at him. He knew that Kyungsoo never meant any of that, and Kyungsoo thought the same about him.

Still, Kyungsoo found it fun to rile him up. “Excuse you. ‘Friend’ my ass. You know damn well that you two were way more than that,” He said, scoffing at the way the other guy shrugged indignantly. Baekhyun may seemed like he was unbothered, but he couldn’t deny how his stomach did a somersault at the thought. Kyungsoo was correct. Baekhyun and him had crossed way past the ‘friend’ line. Just look at what he already did now. He freaking brought a meal from home just to spend a lunch time together with him, and he couldn’t deny the blush that was already making its way to his face. He quickly stood up and bid Kyungsoo goodbye, not bothering to comment about how Kyungsoo’s mouth stretched into a smirk. Instead he made his way to the upper floor, where lots of abandoned rooms were stationed.

Their hideout, in his opinion, was definitely perfect. Stationed right beside the drama club’s headquarter - which many students found no interest in joining, hence the rare occasions of that room being used -, was a lab that had now turned into the school’s store room. The first time he showed him this place, Baekhyun was amazed. Students never even bothered to hang out in here simply because the place was creepy enough, and there was definitely no classes that were held there. How did he even managed to pick the locks of the door was beyond his imagination, but Baekhyun couldn’t care less. As long as they could talk and just be with each other, it was enough for Baekhyun.

Baekhyun was definitely happy with him, even though sometimes Baekhyun wondered at what point did their relationship really stood at.

Chanyeol would call them friends with benefit, but hell, they had never even reached that far yet, only a heavy make out and some humping. But that’s it.

In other words, Baekhyun thought calling their relationship as FWB was bullshit.

Still, he had never felt this strong towards someone that he sometimes got confused with his own feelings. He didn’t want to admit that he have those feelings towards the other, but whenever he so much as saw him from afar, he couldn’t help but stared at the guy and felt giddy towards him.

God, he sounded totally stupid right now.

A beep resounded throughout the room, and Baekhyun picked his phone from his pocket and looked at the message. It was from Chanyeol. He couldn’t help but raised his eyebrow. Usually, Chanyeol would text him only when something came up. Must be one of it, and he tried his best to suppress his disappointment. It was hard for them to at least have lunch together at school simply because no one ever really thought that Chanyeol and Baekhyun did as much as glance at each other (with exception of Kyungsoo of course). And now that they actually planned to eat together after 3 weeks, Chanyeol decided to cancel the plan.

And his hunch was right. Chanyeol couldn’t come today because his coach suddenly decided to be nice enough to treat them lunch outside of the school, and now he’s actually outside with the team. He also provided unnecessary things like how he would be coming home late and at that Baekhyun rolled his eyes - he seemed to do it a lot. Like he cared.

Sulking, Baekhyun opened the lunch box and munched on it, pouting along the way until the bell rang.

 

\--

 

It was 9:30 P.M. and he was doing his homework, when he heard it. It was faint but it was still there. He removed his earplugs and listened closely, and the bell ringing sound was blaring across the entire house. Quickly, he came out from his room to open the front door. The bell rang again and he shouted, “Coming!” at whomever decided to visit at this hour. His mother, who was a full time nurse had a night shift at the hospital she’s currently working tonight. And his brother was probably already heading to his own house, so almost all the time he was home alone, just like now.

He opened the door and was greeted with nothing at the front door. He frowned for a bit before decided to close the door slowly. Reaching out for a baseball bat (his brother gave it to him on his 17th birthday not for sport purposes, but for his mom’s safety. At that Baekhyun couldn’t help but scoffed - as if I didn’t know how to whoop someone’s ass, he had thought).

Then, he waited at the arm chair for another bell ringing. Since his neighborhood were mostly occupied with families and little children, they tended to annoy almost everyone in the area with their pranks, and maybe, Baekhyun thought this was one of them. But then again, he couldn’t be so sure. After all his area did have a lot of petty crimes going on, so readying his baseball bat was definitely on his option.

The bell rang again and Baekhyun smirked. He walked slowly to the door, careful not to let his foot make a shuffling noise, and waited for another press of the bell. When another ring resounded he threw open the door and raised his baseball bat.

Only to be greeted with Chanyeol’s hunched body, ready to bolt, maybe to hide from Baekhyun again. Baekhyun slowly put down his baseball bat and frowned in confusion.

“Uhh…” Chanyeol said first, looking at Baekhyun and quickly stood straight. Baekhyun blinked at him, as if not believing that Chanyeol was here, right in front at his doorsteps.

“What are you doing here?” Baekhyun asked, a bit aghast. Chanyeol, with all his mighty height, sweaty from head to toe and panting slightly, was grinning down at him and boy, did Baekhyun feel weak.

Chanyeol never answered though, just continued to make his way into the house like it was his own house. Baekhyun scrunched his nose at the pungent smell Chanyeol carried with him, and he quickly closed the door and followed Chanyeol closely.

“Excuse me,” he half shouted. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked, pulling Chanyeol’s soaked t-shirt while trying to hide his disgust - which failed - and making the other look at him. Chanyeol actually had the nerve to look at him like he didn’t know anything. Like Baekhyun was the one who did something nonsense. Baekhyun gritted his teeth and tapped his feet. Crossing his arms, Baekhyun glared at the boy in front of him.

It was a few minutes until Chanyeol gave up and smiled cheekily. He slowly raised both of his hands and said, “Guilty.”

They stared at each other, not saying anything until Baekhyun let out a sigh. At that Chanyeol smiled.

“I came here because I really wanted to see you.” Chanyeol said truthfully. Baekhyun only looked blankly at him. “When I was at basketball practice I suddenly remembered you, that’s why I came here.” he continued. Now, he was sporting a soft smile on his face, and by the way his hand was flinching Baekhyun guessed he wanted to touch Baekhyun’s face, only to be held because Chanyeol was apparently dirty.

I’m so weak, Baekhyun surrendered. With another sigh, he pointed to his bathroom upstairs.

“You know the way.”

 

\--

 

After Chanyeol made his way to Baekhyun’s bedroom, where he showered and changed there (knowing him, he must have planned it ahead and brought extra clothes, that sly bastard Baekhyun thought), he trudged down the stairs and saw that Baekhyun was currently sitting on one of the stools of the kitchen bar, sipping his hot chocolate. Smiling, he made his way to the cupboard and took out two packs of ramen. He then fetched a pot and began flourishing his way on cooking ramen, and Baekhyun only watched him in silence.

Baekhyun was so used to this sight of Chanyeol that now he simply didn’t bother anymore. The other had been spending time with him for as long as he could remember that now the other guy already knew where to go and fetch things.

Chanyeol glanced back, smiling a bit when he caught Baekhyun’s stares and he just sipped his chocolate malt silently. Chanyeol turned back to his pot and stirred his ramen, and after 5 minutes he was done. He put the pot right in the middle of the kitchen bar and turned to Baekhyun, again.

“Wait, do you have boiled eggs?” he asked and Baekhyun only rolled his eyes, as usual. He gestured to the fridge, making Chanyeol grinned in delight. Baekhyun was not really a big eater of ramen, but Chanyeol was. The first few visits he kept asking him if he had boiled eggs already, until Baekhyun realized that maybe that’s the way Chanyeol ate his ramen. Back then, he thought that it was ridiculous, yet now he couldn’t help but adored it.

And damn it, he definitely sounded like those love struck out there and he inwardly cringed.

Chanyeol sat in front of him and started to dig in, all the while Baekhyun was staring at him. His eyes trailed to his toned arms that was hidden beneath the short sleeves of the t-shirt, and then to his matted hair that he never bothered to dry properly. Baekhyun sighed. He can’t believe that this was the man that almost the entire school loved, including him. With messy hair and that bundle t-shirt and the way he ate, but Baekhyun still couldn’t help the way he felt towards the other. Especially when he looked up towards Baekhyun.

Knowing that he was caught staring, he cleared his throat and stood up from his place. Going to the sink to wash his mug, he asked “What are you doing in here?”

There was a pause followed by the sound of slurping.

“What? You don’t like me being here?” Chanyeol feigned a shock, and Baekhyun just rolled his eyes. Chanyeol offered him a chopstick and Baekhyun took the chopstick that the other guy offered and stared at him curiously. Chanyeol, oblivious (or pretending to), just continued to wolf down the noodle. When he sensed that Baekhyun was still frozen on his spot, he simply looked up and just tilted his head.

Baekhyun just smiled, albeit sarcastically.

“What happened to ‘let’s not talk to each other for a while’ huh” he said and he’s not going to lie when he felt proud of making Chanyeol visibly flinched. Baekhyun put down the chopstick and crossed his arm, waiting for Chanyeol’s answer. Chanyeol meanwhile just shrugged and continued to eat, albeit slower than awhile ago.

“I was drunk,” he reasoned. “and stupid.”

“Beats me,” Baekhyun said, yawning. He leaned on the chair and stared at Chanyeol yet again. By now, Chanyeol had stopped eating and was looking at Baekhyun. Baekhyun only looked at the pot of ramen and slowly slid the pot closer to him.

“About what happened at the school,” he heard Chanyeol said, and he looked at Chanyeol expectantly. Chanyeol sighed and took the pot away from Baekhyun and started eating again. The gesture made Baekhyun frown and he kicked his shin under the table, making Chanyeol yelp.

“What the hell, Byun?” he frowned and Baekhyun just looked at him, unimpressed.

“I was about to eat that,” he answered and took the pot back towards him. “and you were saying?” he said, raising his eyebrows at the other guy. Baekhyun knew exactly what Chanyeol wanted to say, but still, he wanted to hear it from his very own mouth. Chanyeol sighed and put his chopstick down, knowing that Baekhyun would finish all of it.

“I just want to say that I’m sorry about my friend’s behavior back then,” he said, expecting Baekhyun to say something, maybe even lash out on him, but surprisingly (or unsurprisingly - he didn’t know anymore) Baekhyun merely shrugged and started slurping the noodle. For a moment, there was not a single sound made by them, Chanyeol staring at him and Baekhyun pretending to be oblivious and just continued eating.

But not for long though. Baekhyun could feel Chanyeol’s heated stare and he couldn’t deny that it made him a bit uncomfortable. He slowly looked up and blinked. “What?” he asked Chanyeol, and saw the other guy pursed his lips.

“If I say that Jongin was not like what you saw, would you believe me?” The sudden question seemed to throw Baekhyun off, but then he scoffed.

“And why would you ask me that?” Baekhyun asked in monotone, unimpressed. Chanyeol pursed his lips yet again and became quiet. After a moment, he shook his head and gave him a small smile.

“Forget what I asked you just now,” Chanyeol simply said and peered at the not almost empty pot and gestured towards it. “Are you going to finish it or not?”

Baekhyun didn’t answer that question, instead he stood up and said, “Just so you know, no one could change my opinion over one person unless they did prove it themselves.”

With that, he walked away to his room.

 

\--

 

He knew that Chanyeol would follow him and slept beside him, so he didn’t even flinch when the bed creaked and he felt the other’s presence beside him. Baekhyun was already halfway to dreamland when Chanyeol started speaking again.

“I’m sorry that I asked you that question,” he whispered, his breath ghosting near Baekhyun’s face.

And as much as Baekhyun wanted to surpress his smile, he couldn’t. He opened his eyes and saw that Chanyeol’s eyes were closed already. He stared at his face for a moment, his eyes scrutinizing every inch of his face before he opened his mouth.

“I did think that Jongin was a nice person. He just didn’t show it to me,” he pinched the other’s cheek gently. “I knew that anyone around you would be a nice person Chanyeol. Because that’s who you are - a nice person,” he ended it there and shut his eyes again, moving his hand away from Chanyeol’s face, unaware of the other’s smile at him.

 

\--

 

Baekhyun didn’t remember where all of this started; him and Chanyeol. Baekhyun was pretty sure that the term ‘friend’ had been abandoned a long time ago, judging by how Chanyeol treated him… but at the same time, the term ‘lover’ was too cringy and so not like him and Chanyeol.

Chanyeol. The boy who lived just across him, whom that he never acknowledged until a year ago. The boy that finally managed to crack something within his heart to at least accept another people in his life after Kyungsoo.

Baekhyun was just walking back from Kyungsoo’s place. It was Friday night and it was chilly at that time. Autumn was just around the corner and it’s the season wherein Baekhyun really didn’t enjoy at all. It’s the season where it kept getting hot and then turned cold at night and it made him easily fell ill. Not to mention his exams were just around the corner and it’s been such a busy week for him.

He huffed and briskly walked on the pavement. He couldn’t really see clearly despite the lamp posts provided on each side of the road thus it didn’t stop him from walking faster. It’s way past his curfew and curse his luck, it’s the day that his mom had the day off. Pretty sure she’s waiting for him now, if not in the living room maybe in the front yard. The thought made him grumble even more.

The area was pretty quiet save for the vehicles passing around, when suddenly he heard a loud barking just across the street. At first, he was going to ignore it. But then the barking became clearer and before he knew it, a bundle of fluff stopped at his feet and looked up at him.

It was dark and Baekhyun couldn’t see anything, but he knew for instant that it was a black poodle dog and when he crouched down, he was met with a mesmerizing pair of black eyes that sparkled and Baekhyun instantly turned into a soft mess. He cooed and started patting the dog.

“You’re cute,” he said softly, the dog leaning into his touch clearly enjoying the attention. Baekhyun continued to observe the adorable creature and couldn’t help but snicker when he noticed the blue leash around the puppy’s neck. That’s the only bright thing that the dog was wearing that contrasted against its jet-black coat.

“Your master must be taking a walk with you.” he tsk-ed. “No offense but your master was kinda stupid. If I didn’t hear you barking I think I would already accidentally kicked you or something.”

The dog just barked again and started to chase after its own tail, and Baekhyun was left staring at the creature in amusement. Baekhyun had a corgi dog back in the house, but the corgi was mostly closer with his mother and Baekhyun never took good care of it. Usually, it’s Baekbeom who took care of it whenever his mom went to work, but he would be leaving for university soon and the only solution left was Baekhyun and he really didn’t have a choice.

The poodle apparently had stopped chasing after its own tail and now was just completely staring at him. Baekhyun tilted his head, raising his eyebrows at the dog as if challenging it, and to Baekhyun’s surprise, the dog followed. Baekhyun’s mouth stretched into a wide smile.

“Toben!” the sudden call made the both of them jumped in surprise, and then the dog started to bark energetically and running around in circle. The owner, Baekhyun assumed, walked towards them in a haste, not bothering to look left and right and just crossed the road.

Baekhyun couldn’t help but felt like there’s something really familiar with this person, but he couldn’t put it on words. Baekhyun furrowed his eyebrows, trying to search for that something but before he could find it, the person spoke up.

“Bad Tobennie, bad Tobennie. Sit,” he ordered and the dog immediately followed. Despite him scolding the puppy just before, he sneaked out a treat from his jacket’s pocket and gave it to the poodle.

“Now roll over,” he said, and the puppy obediently followed. Baekhyun was a bit weirded out when the other started jumping and clapping in excitement, and have had to interrupt the guy from whatever he was by clearing his throat. Only then that the guy stopped and when he realized there’s another person staring at him all this time, he couldn’t help but pinked.

“Your dog?” he asked the obvious question. The guy was nice enough to follow him.

“Yup. His name is Toben. He’s a really good boy,” he said while picking up the puppy. He saw the other guy frowning at the puppy. “Except tonight.” he continued but gave a pat on its head before looking back at Baekhyun. Baekhyun assumed that he must really loved his dog to not even scold it that much.

Baekhyun smiled. “Well, he indeed is.” he said and stroked the curly hair which the puppy seemed to really appreciate it. Baekhyun continued to stare at the guy, and his instinct kept telling him that the guy indeed seemed familiar. Shaking his head, Baekhyun just ignored the feeling and slowly let his hand fall.

“I should get going then,” he said and turned around. Before he was even beginning to walk away, the guy grabbed his shoulder and attempted to turn him around. Baekhyun, who was taught to not trust strangers let alone touch him, immediately recoiled and nearly hit him square on the face if not for the fact that the stranger quickly distanced himself from him while raising his hand like he was trying to calm some enraged animal.

Baekhyun scowled.

“What do you want from me?” Baekhyun couldn’t help but seethed, and even the dog started whimpering, clearly uncomfortable with the sudden situation.

The guy lowered his hand and stared at him in confusion. Baekhyun furrowed his brows at the reaction, but at the same time it irked him to see that the guy still looked nonchalant when just a moment ago he just touched someone he barely knew.

“You don’t recognise me?” he said, and all of a sudden his annoyance towards the man dissipated quickly to be followed by a surprised state. So he really did seemed familiar to me, Baekhyun thought.

Still, Baekhyun won’t let him slide just like that and instead he put his guard up.

“You’re not worthy enough for me to remember your face,” he said brutally, and he could see that the other guy was so shocked with his answer that he ended up laughing hysterically. It was to the point that Baekhyun wanted to burst out laughing too, because his laugh was just that addictive.

Baekhyun erased the thought and scowled even further.

After the guy finally calmed down, he straightened himself and grinned.

“You are a one funny guy Byun Baekhyun,”

Baekhyun’s mind went blank after he heard his name. “You know me?” he said with a blank look on his face. The guy stared at him weirdly and scrunched his face.

“Uh, yeah. We go to the same school.”

Baekhyun raised an eyebrow, expecting the man to elaborate further. All he got was a chuckle.

“I’m Park Chanyeol. We go to the same class together.” he explained and suddenly all the wires in his head seemed to start functioning again. Baekhyun blinked before clearing his throat. No wonder the guy looked so familiar.

“And… what do you want from me?” he asked, trying to sound unfazed but judging from the other’s grin, he failed.

“Well, nothing. Just wanted to say hi,” he said, still grinning. Baekhyun rolled his eyes and turned around, ignoring the sound of shuffling feet behind him. Park Chanyeol was following him, he’s damn sure about it. He didn’t even try to hide it, with the way Chanyeol was cooing at his dog. At first, he was going to ignore it, but when he turned the corner around his house Baekhyun realized that Chanyeol would probably walk into his house at this point.

“I’m sorry but can you stop following me around?” Baekhyun turned around so suddenly that Chanyeol almost dropped his dog on the ground. The tall guy blinked twice before frowning.

“I’m not following you, Byun.”

Baekhyun only raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms. Chanyeol scoffed but immediately recovered when Baekhyun kept glaring at him.

“I’m serious! I’m not following you.” Chanyeol couldn’t help but exclaimed. “And why the hell would I follow you in the first place?” he continued, rocking his dog when the poodle started to whimper, sensing how the tension between both of them kept rising.

“Well, I don’t know. But whatever is in your mind Park Chanyeol, don’t even bother to do it,” he sounded like he was warning Chanyeol, but of course, the guy didn’t pay any heed. Baekhyun just started walking again and this time, he walked faster than usual. Still, he could feel that the other was trailing behind him, and he internally groaned at that.

Baekhyun had never been this happy when he saw a glimpse of his house. He briskly walked into his house, ignoring the fact that Chanyeol was still following him. Only this time, he actually made a turn and crossed the street, then he walked straight into a house right in front of his.

Wait… what?

Baekhyun slowly halted, confusion written all over on his face. He saw how the other guy unlocked the gates of the house and how easily he slipped into the porch like he had already done it so many times. Baekhyun’s eyes widened when he saw him turned around and waved his hand, smirk already painted on his face.

Embarrasment was an understatement. The fact that Baekhyun didn’t even knew that they were neighbours all this time. Baekhyun had always never took part on knowing who was who in this area. He usually just went to school and then came straight home, since he preferred to stay holed up in his room than going out to the mall or something. He always thought that even if there were kids from his school who lived here, they would know to avoid him rather than initiating a conversation with him.

Well, Chanyeol just did the opposite, and Baekhyun had been so stupid to not even recognize him in the first place.

 

\--

 

The sound of pot clanking was what that woke Baekhyun up. He scrunched his nose, annoyed at the really loud noise and blinked his eyes tiredly. He looked to the side and saw that the other side of the bed was already tidied up. He let out a loud yawn and woke up, looking from left to right, searching for nothing in particular.

There was a knock and he looked up to see Chanyeol standing at his door, looking sheepish. Baekhyun smiled at the sight. Chanyeol looked so cute, all bundle up in his oversized jacket, which was a perfect fit for Chanyeol.

“Hey,” he said. “Your mom’s here. She already cooked us breakfast.”

Baekhyun just blinked twice before he let out a yawn again. Chanyeol laughed a bit before shaking his head.

“And I probably should go to. You know, basketball practice,” he added when Baekhyun gave him a confused look. Baekhyun just nodded. There was an awkward silence followed by, where both of them didn’t know what to do, but in the end, Chanyeol cleared his throat and bade his goodbye.

After Chanyeol clicked his door shut, Baekhyun slumped back on his bed and sighed. After all this time, there were still some parts that left Baekhyun in confusion and… as much as he didn’t want to admit it, pain.

He wanted to have a real relationship with Chanyeol, not this so-called ‘some’ relationship. Baekhyun was not the type to deny facts, and if his heart told him that he likes Chanyeol, then he was going to whole-heartedly embrace the fact - even though he would try to hide it from everyone. Baekhyun had always been a bit self-conscious when it came to the topic about relationship. Ever since he came out and openly announced that he was gay since middle school, no one seemed to dare to even get close with him. And even if he did get in a relationship, it’s either they hid it from everyone because they were too afraid of people’s judgement or they just only wanted to test the waters about having a same sex relationship.

Baekhyun didn’t really mind all that, he had always been such a positive person despite a dark aura that he always tried to exude on people. Kyungsoo seemed to notice it, that’s why he was the only person who actually stayed long enough with Baekhyun. Kyungsoo knew and understood Baekhyun entirely, inside and outside, and he was the first person that didn’t judge Baekhyun just because of his sexuality or ‘angsty’ personality.

And now, Chanyeol. That guy… it’s hard to really decipher what was inside the guy’s head. Sure, he looked normal enough; popular, handsome jock, kind of flirty with everyone, even the janitors. But just like Baekhyun, it all seemed like a façade to everyone. If Baekhyun was weird, than Chanyeol would be ten times weirder than Baekhyun (even though, Chanyeol was more like a nice type of weird, which really didn’t help at all in Baekhyun’s case).

 

\--

 

Baekhyun was doing his homework as usual, when he heard a loud thump. It was awfully cold, the rain had been pouring badly that week. Usually during normal days, Baekhyun would open his window to let the soothing night breeze came through his room, but not tonight though. Any sane person would have thought that walking outside in this weather would be a bad idea through and through.

Baekhyun immediately padded towards his window to open it, only to stop dead on his tracks when he saw Chanyeol in his front yard. First question that came through his head was how the hell did he came here? And then Baekhyun saw him holding his slipper and attempted to throw it to, what he guessed, was his window. At this point, Baekhyun didn’t know anymore whether the other’s brain was severely affected with this acid rain or he was just stupid like that.

Deciding that enough was enough, Baekhyun immediately ran towards his door, and opened the door to make his way to Chanyeol.

“Yah!” he yelled, and Chanyeol stopped his attempt to throw his slipper towards his window and turned around to see Baekhyun glaring at him behind the gates. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he hissed. It was almost 10 PM, the neighbourhood was slowly falling into quietness and Baekhyun was certainly not in the mood to be the one to ruin such state of tranquillity.

Chanyeol grinned at the sight of him and put down his slipper to wear it. Baekhyun’s eyes turned into slits and if his looks could kill, Chanyeol would be splayed dead on the ground right now.

“Byun,” he greeted. “I see that you still preferred to be confined in your room rather than having fun so,” he stretched his arms out and put on his most snobbish face Baekhyun had ever seen. “...I’m going to hang out with you.”

It was quiet for a moment, with Baekhyun staring blankly at him before he bursted out in laughter. Chanyeol slowly dropped his hands down to his sides and stared at the guy before him. Chanyeol had never heard him laugh, and even if he did, it was usually a sarcastic smile directed towards him. It made Chanyeol’s heart soar up high when he knew he was the source of that loud ahahaha that came out from his cute mouth, and maybe, his stomach just did a bit somersault at the way Baekhyun’s nose and eyes crinkled.

He heard Baekhyun sighed before the latter was looking back at him while wiping his eyes from invisible tears.

“And what makes you think that I would allow you?” Baekhyun looked dead serious now, face void of any emotions and it made Chanyeol quiver a bit. So much for making him laugh.

“Well-“ Chanyeol tried to say but then was cut off when Baekhyun spoke again.

“Tell you what Chanyeol. Why do you suddenly care? We’re not even friends.”

“That’s not true,” Chanyeol frowned when he heard what the other had just said. “Who said that I never cared? And I had always thought of you as my friend,” he said with an innocent smile like he just didn’t claim that he and Baekhyun were friends all this time. Baekhyun scoffed and wanted to retort back when Chanyeol beat him to it.

“Okay, well technically I never cared about you but I do consider you as my friend, since we’re neighbours and all,” he said. “By the way, you look really shocked to see me living across from you huh?”

Baekhyun’s flushed when he remembered the events that happened last week, and he didn’t know why, but he stuttered, thinking on how to snide back to him.

“I-I-“

“You’re cute, you know that?”

Baekhyun blinked, and Chanyeol just grinned. The atmosphere turned quiet around the two of them, and now Baekhyun was gaping at him. 2 seconds later, Baekhyun was back to laughing at him, his embarrassment about the incident last week forgotten. He was too dumbfounded to respond properly, because he never had someone who wanted to flirt with him, and a bold one at that.

Chanyeol just kept surprising him that night.

“I’m sorry but,” he wheezed, trying to keep himself composed but he barely survived there. “did you just flirted with me?” Baekhyun said incredulously, and he stared at the other who merely shrugged and tried to look unfazed. Even when it was dark and the shitty lamp post surely wasn’t helping, Baekhyun could still see how red Chanyeol’s ears were. Baekhyun snorted and started laughing again, not giving a damn if he did disrupt the quietness of the area.

Needless to say, Chanyeol didn’t score him that night, but at least, Baekhyun was starting to open up to him after that.

 

\---

 

Besides the hidden and definitely unused lab room, Baekhyun usually liked to spend his time at the field and read his book. He didn’t have a certain genre that he loved to read though, he read every kinds of book. He also thought that by reading a book, it would be a very helpful sign in shooing people away from bothering him.

And he was definitely right; no one really paid him much attention. There were 5 girls seated just besides him, all huddled up together. They were too busy discussing about Kim Jongdae’s party to acknowledge the fact that Baekhyun was seated just beside them, and were kind of ruining Baekhyun’s peacefulness. He turned his head and - as much as he didn’t want to admit it – tried to eavesdrop them.

“All of them are going to be there!” a screech came from one of them. Baekhyun rolled his eyes incredulously. Girls, he thought. But then he strained his ears again to hear what they were talking.

“Do you think that Jongin would finally notice me? I’ve worked so hard on my hair this week and he barely spared me a glance,” the one girl who was sporting a short bob hair pouted. Some of her friends patted her back to reassure her, others just shook their heads.

“Yah, I told you that he was just using you!” one of them said, and the others nodded their heads in agreement. The said girl just harrumphed before shaking her head indignantly.

“No! I don’t believe all of you,” The girl said adamantly and crossed her arms. “He told me that he loves me!”

“Hate to break it to you, but that was three weeks ago.” Her friend said. Baekhyun snorted softly, knowing that’s just how Jongin was. “Besides, Kim Jongin is known as a heartbreaker. Don’t you all know about what happened to Byun Baekhyun?” the girl continued, and the remaining four perked up. All of them began to pester the girl about what happened, and they were starting to get loud too.

Baekhyun froze at the mention of his name, but then he sighed and slowly shut his book. Deciding that he’s had enough of hanging out in the crowd for the day, Baekhyun slowly walked away from the field, careful to make himself invisible in the process so the girls could continue gossiping about him. It’s been years since the incident happened that Baekhyun didn’t care about what people were thinking about him anymore.

He’s too deep in his thoughts that he didn’t notice people coming his way. Some students bumped into him and he merely paid them attention, when suddenly he was turned around harshly and was met with none other than Kim Jongin, in flesh.

“Hold on, Byun. With the way you’re walking people would assume some psycho is following you,” Jongin said, amusement written on his expression. Baekhyun blinked at him, kind of dazed for a moment before his gaze hardened.

“What do you want?” he yanked his shoulder from Jongin’s grip. Jongin only raised his eyebrows, looking unfazed by his reaction. He only rolled his eyes and heaved a sigh.

“Our economic project, dummy. You’ve gone senile now?”

It took Baekhyun only 2 seconds to remember the group project that their teacher had assigned them with. Baekhyun hold himself from face palming himself and instead bit his lip. He didn’t want to look sheepish in front of this guy but judging from his smirk, he guessed he had failed. He internally cursed himself.

“Okay,” Baekhyun muttered. “So, when do you think we could start?” he asked. Jongin pursed his lips, wondering for a moment before glancing warily at Baekhyun.

“Actually, I’m not sure. You know with upcoming basketball season and all...” Jongin trailed and peeked at Baekhyun’s reaction. Baekhyun only frowned in return, but didn’t say anything. He instead adjusted his backpack, and looked up.

“Well, I’m totally free most of the time,” he then sighed. “I guess you can text me your schedule or something and we can figure out what time we should start.” He continued. Jongin just shrugged and nodded. Baekhyun nearly rolled his eyes at his reaction. Baekhyun knew well enough that Jongin was only half-serious about doing this since; a) it’s economy and b) he’s paired up with Baekhyun. Baekhyun hated to be that kind of nerd you watched on TV where they would literally do people’s homework for whatever reason, but when it came to grading, most teacher didn’t care about that. If your assingment’s good than the entire team would get good marks. It’s unfair, Baekhyun knew, but he also knew how to make it obvious that he was doing most of the jobs, so that’s fine.

Jongin here meanwhile, was another story.

Baekhyun simply hated doing group works with Jongin. Mostly because Jongin knew that Baekhyun would eventually do them all by himself because it’s a grouped mark, and also because of their past. Baekhyun loathed himself everytime he felt like this, but he couldn’t help it. It was still hard for him to let go sometimes, and the fact that Jongin was so nonchalant with him made his skin crawl.

But still, when it came to work, they did a good job of being civil enough. Not like Baekhyun and Jongin got paired up always. Maybe Baekhyun was indeed a good actor.

“Yeah, I can definitely do that.” Jongin said, halting Baekhyun’s thought. “You still used your old number?” he asked and started fiddling with something inside his bag and fetched out a lollipop. Baekhyun only looked at Jongin sceptically when he just threw the wrapper in the air. “What?” Jongin raised his eyebrow, definitely ignorant of the fact that he just polluted the land when the dustbin was merely just a walk away behind him.

Baekhyun smiled, albeit sarcastically and shook his head.

“No, your majesty. I changed my number-“

“Again?” Jongin cut off, sounding annoyed and maybe he was whining a little. Which was kind of weird for Baekhyun. Baekhyun rolled his eyes for the umpteenth time at him.

“If I didn’t know any better, I would think that you were still keeping tabs on me, which – I know –“ Baekhyun stopped Jongin when he seemed to interrupt Baekhyun. “seems stupid and ridiculous, but yes. I changed my number, years ago, when my phone was lost and at that time we were not talking with each other anymore,” Baekhyun ended, not expecting any reaction from the guy.

Jongin winced a bit, which surprised Baekhyun to be honest, but he also felt satisfied about his reaction. But it’s only for a few seconds, because then he shrugged.

“Whatever. I’ll text you when the time’s convenient then,” He said curtly and walked away from him. Baekhyun only raised his eyebrows and started walking again towards his class. Not far away from where he and Jongin stood before, stood Kyungsoo with a weird look on his face. And then he realized nearly everyone in the corridor had been looking at him weirdly, discreetly and openly. Baekhyun knew exactly why they wore such expressions, and he cursed at himself.

“Jongin?” Kyungsoo asked, knowing well enough that Baekhyun understood his question. Baekhyun just sighed and dragged Kyungsoo to their respective class.

“I’ll tell you later,” he muttered. Kyungsoo just narrowed his eyes, his gut feeling was telling him that Baekhyun would not even try to explain it.

 

And he was right.

Kyungsoo watched as Baekhyun entered his kitchen and started opening the cabinet, searching for something. He continued watching even though Baekhyun in the end just stared blankly at the inside of his cabinet, deep in his thoughts. Kyungsoo sighed before he deliberately coughed out loud. Baekhyun blinked and turned towards Kyungsoo, and then he remembered what he was initially looking for.

“Ah right. Your drink,” he mumbled and began fumbling over ingredients. Kyungsoo rolled his eyes, unimpressed and finally decided to speak up.

“So what’s with you and Jongin?”

Baekhyun stirred the mug of hot chocolate, shrugging slightly. “He just wants to talk about our economic assignment,” he replied, and Kyungsoo raised his eyebrows, a bit surprised at the revelation. Baekhyun already expected that Kyungsoo would react that way.

“You two got paired up to do what?” Kyungsoo asked, his bushy eyebrows went way up to his forehead.

“You heard me,” Baekhyun smirked while handing him his drink. Kyungsoo sipped a little and hummed, his fingers drumming on the mug.

“It is kind of shocking for me. Isn’t this, like, the first time you two got paired up?” Baekhyun nodded silently. Kyungsoo only hummed. “And he was acting really civil with you too. But that’s beside the point,” he flailed his hand in the air as if there was a mosquito around him and turned to Baekhyun. Baekhyun was staring at the table, his face void of any emotion. Kyungsoo suddenly felt concerned towards the boy, and he slowly reached out towards the guy.

“Byun, are you okay?” he asked, placing his hand over his shoulder.

The truth is, Baekhyun clearly heard every blabbers that came out from Kyungsoo. It was indeed true that this was the first time that he and Jongin would be working together, after 2 years of not talking to each other. Or well, talking to each other civilly. Even if they did, they would end up just like a few days ago. But most of the times, they distanced themselves from each other.

Realizing that he was still not answering his friend’s question, he looked at Kyungsoo and nodded.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Everything’s cool,” he said, giving his friend a reassuring smile. Kyungsoo still gave Baekhyun an uncertain look, and he just rolled his eyes. Kyungsoo grinned rather cheekily, and both of them stayed in comfortable silence for a while.

“Oh, by the way,” Kyungsoo said after finishing his mug. “You know about Jongdae’s party?” he continued. Baekhyun only hummed and nodded, but then he frowned. He slowly turned towards Kyungsoo, who only raised both of his hands in the air as if in defense when Baekhyun shot him a look.

“What?” he retorted. “I’m just asking!”

“Well, that was one weird question for you to ask,” he rolled his eyes and picked up the empty mug. He sauntered to the sink and started washing it, when he heard Kyungsoo clearing his throat.

“Actually, I’m planning to go.” Kyungsoo said. When he looked up to see Baekhyun’s reaction he was only greeted by Baekhyun’s raised eyebrow. He shrugged and then scratched the back of his neck, and Baekhyun knew in that instant that Kyungsoo was actually hiding something from him.

“Kyungsoo,” He drawled, narrowing his eyes into slits. “You’re hiding something from me huh?”

“Well, actually,” Kyungsoo started. “I’ve known Jongdae for a while now, and he invited me to go to his party. I couldn’t refuse so I just said yes,” he ended and chanced a look at Baekhyun. Baekhyun meanwhile stared at his friend in confusion.

“You knew Jongdae?” he asked, a bit bewildered. Kyungsoo just nodded. “Since when?”

“Just recently.” He said, waving his hand dismissively. “The most important thing is, I’m telling you this because I’m going to the party and I want you to know.” Kyungsoo spoke and looked up. Baekhyun blinked in confusion at first but then he let out a loud laugh.

“Kyungsoo, I’m not your parent.” Baekhyun said with a cheeky grin, teasing the bald guy. Kyungsoo reddened for a moment and Baekhyun chortled even more.

“I-I just,” Kyungsoo struggled for a word. “I thought, you would go all berserk knowing me going to a party.” He resumed. Baekhyun cackled some more before recomposing himself, and then he shrugged.

“Like I said, I’m not your parent. And besides, it’s your life Kyungsoo, I’m not going to police you into everything you’re doing. Just… enjoy your life.” He said with a smile. Kyungsoo beamed back in return, and they fell back into silence.

“You know, I could say the same thing about you,” Kyungsoo started again. “With the whole ‘enjoy your life’,” He grinned teasingly, and this time, Baekhyun only threw him a sarcastic smile before wetting his hands just to sprinkle the water on his face.

 

\---

 

“So… all of you know what this season is, right?” The PE teacher yelled across the room. Kyungsoo and Baekhyun were seating together at the far corner, away from the rest of their classmates. Both of them just minding their own business and they already got the gist of what the topic the teacher wanted to talk about, and obviously they’re not the slightest bit interested with it.

“It’s not just about entering summer. It’s…” the teacher paused for a moment, enthusiastically looking around the students who mostly were buzzing with excitement. The teacher smiled and continued.

“Yup, you guessed it right. It’s basketball season!” the teacher said with so much spirit that Kyungsoo let out a big yawn. Almost everyone turned their head towards him, including the teacher who merely gave them a stink eye before continuing. Baekhyun spluttered and elbowed his friend harshly, who just shrugged.

“Anyway, since we’re here now, we’re going to play basketball! So come on, split into 2 teams so we can get this over with.” The teacher started moving around including the students who were buzzing around, leaving Baekhyun and Kyungsoo unimpressed.

“Look at those basketball dudes,” Kyungsoo gestured towards five tall males at the center of the hall who were currently discussing something with the teacher. All of them were The™ basketball players, so of course Chanyeol and Jongin were one of them. Baekhyun not-so-discreetly might have stared a little too long at Chanyeol, who looked focused at whatever discussion they’re having.

As if he sensed someone was staring at him, Chanyeol looked up and grinned boyishly when he noticed Baekhyun staring at him. And as if to make matters worse (or good? Baekhyun really couldn’t read this situation clearly), he had the audacity to wink at Baekhyun, leaving both him and Kyungsoo to jump a little. The latter was obviously staring at Chanyeol too, but what was really in his mind was an entirely different reason.

“Chanyeol? Who are you winking at?” their teacher asked and turned around, searching the entire area. Baekhyun didn’t show it but inside he was panicking badly. He didn’t know why but even up until now the thoughts of people knowing about Chanyeol and Baekhyun’s relationship still scared him like no other. Maybe because deep down he was scared that it would turn out to be the same thing just like when he was with Jongin.

Baekhyun quickly pushed away the thought and saw that Chanyeol still remained calm. He laughed and scratched the back of his neck.

“Ah, it’s nothing Mrs. Jo. My left eye just tend to twitch automatically. See?” he replied and demonstrated the winking again. Mrs. Jo just raised her eyebrow but there was a tint of blush appearing on her cheeks. Standing next to Chanyeol was Jongin, who merely rolled his eyes at the scene in front of him and slowly turned to Baekhyun.

Jongin was full on glaring at him, and if Baekhyun didn’t know any better, Jongin might also look like he was analyzing Baekhyun, like he knew something that Baekhyun had been trying to keep a secret.

Suddenly feeling uncomfortable, Baekhyun dragged Kyungsoo to search for a team. Kyungsoo stayed mute though, but he knew that he would have a lot of questions that needed Baekhyun’s answers, and so Baekhyun just left it like that for that day.

At the end of the day, when Baekhyun was already settled in the safe confines of his room, he got a message from Jongin. Baekhyun stared at the new message alert notification for a while, surprised that Jongin was still using the same old number.

From: Jongin

I’m free this weekend’s afternoon. Maybe we can start from there?

 

\---

 

Weekend arrived just in a blink of an eye for Baekhyun. Just like usual, he spent most of his time studying, and when even studying felt dull for him, he would turn to his computer and played games until his mother had to yell from across the kitchen to make him stop. Sometimes he played with Mongryong too, ignoring Baekbeom’s attempt to pick a fight with him. Baekhyun swore that his brother behaved like a 5-year-old sometimes.

Sometimes he saw Chanyeol too, who merely waved his hand enthusiastically, followed by a couple of messages. He swore that everytime Chanyeol as much as grinned at him, his heart soared up, and even his mom had been throwing him a scrutinizing stare everytime his phone started pinging when they were having dinner.

He couldn’t help it, it’s like an automatic involuntary reaction when it’s about that lanky man. His brother called him whipped. Baekhyun immediately whipped him with a broomstick or whatever long things he could reach for whenever he addressed him that, but Baekhyun knew that his brother was probably right.

Baekhyun had been whipped for a long time ago, ever since Chanyeol started appearing at his front yard more often. When all he did was laying on the grass and gazed up at the night sky, and Baekhyun was left wondering how and what the hell his intentions were. And when Baekhyun caught him trespassing their gate with so much ease, and Baekhyun didn’t even yell at him at that time, Baekhyun knew that Chanyeol had slowly succeeded in securing a special spot in his heart.

Baekhyun was actually such an easy person. A softie. All barks and no bite. Kyungsoo seemed to notice that, Chanyeol had noticed that too, and unfortunately, Jongin also knew that. That’s one of the main reason why Jongin and him grew distant.

 

Baekhyun ran towards the door when he heard the doorbell rang. He took a peek from the gap between the curtains and saw Jongin standing behind the gates, his brows furrowed. Baekhyun quickly pushed the button to open the gate and opened the door, revealing that Jongin was now looking at him.

“What are you waiting for? Get in,” he yelled, gesturing for Jongin to come inside. He didn’t bother to wait for the guy, instead he walked ahead towards the kitchen. His mom was there in the kitchen, busy cooking for 3 people. Baekhyun didn’t know if he wanted to curse or be grateful with his luck. It just so happened that they were doing their assignments together on the day his mom had a day off. Baekhyun didn’t actually know why he was so nervous at the thought of Jongin loitering around in his room, when just a few days ago he practically threw himself at Jongin, tackling him and successfully embarrassing the guy – and him – in front of the entire school.

His mom immediately turned to him when he came entered the room. Baekhyun simply ignored her, knowing precisely what she wanted to ask. Before she could say anything though, Jongin already stood at the entrance of the kitchen and politey bowed at his mom.

“Hello, aunty. It’s been a while since we’ve last met,” Jongin greeted with a smile on his face. Baekhyun, who was drinking from his mug just made a stink eye behind it. His mom merely glanced at his son before nodding.

“Of course, Jongin. You’re getting more and more handsome,” she said and continued to stir the soup, not looking at Jongin’s direction. Jongin chuckled a bit before bowing again.

“Thank you, aunty.” Jongin said, and Baekhyun decided that enough was enough. He put the mug in the sink and dragged him by tugging his shirt to his room, leaving the guy sputtering all the way.

When they arrived at his room, Jongin immediately yanked his hand and turned to glare at him.

“What the hell, Byun?” Jongin frowned, trying his best to keep his voice on the low so that Baekhyun’s mom wouldn’t hear him. Baekhyun barely gave him a response and instead took out a mini table from under his bed and sat in front of him. Jongin raised his eyebrows at the sight, and Baekhyun only rolled his eyes. He stared at the space for a moment before turning to Jongin.

“Can I ask you something?” Baekhyun suddenly asked. Jongin could only blink before responding, “Sure?”

“Do you come here to discuss homework or do you want to flirt with my mom?” Baekhyun said, unimpressed. Jongin only gaped at him, before he suddenly let out a loud laugh. Baekhyun made a face at the guy who was holding his stomach and nearly toppled over his study table, and just shook his head before taking out his textbook.

“You’re done?” Baekhyun seethed when Jongin has yet to show a sign that he was going to stop anytime soon. Jongin merely wiped his tears from the corner of his eyes and let out one last chuckle. Jongin grinned at him; gone was the scorned or the arrogant look that he usually sported when he was looking at Baekhyun, and for a moment, Baekhyun stared at the guy. Really stared at him.

It’s been so long since he last saw that look on Jongin’s face. Or rather, the way he used to sport this face whenever he saw Baekhyun. Instead of the smirking, and snobbish look that he threw at him, Jongin looked more sincere with his gummy smile and crinkled eyes.

He looked exactly like his best friend. Once upon a time.

“Earth to Baekhyun?” He heard Jongin’s voice, and blinked twice before realizing the close proximity between them. Before, Jongin was standing near the door, now he was perched right next to Baekhyun. Startled, Baekhyun jumped a bit before scooting to the side.

“Sorry. You were saying?”

Jongin raised his eyebrows before making a face.

“I said, do you really think I’m going to seduce your mom when she’s the same age as my mom? And besides, no offence but-“ he chuckled before continuing. “I don’t like older women, especially ones that have a children. Do you honestly think I would stoop that low with this face? Please.”

Baekhyun made a face and just stared pointedly at the guy. Jongin was still rattling about whatever it was, Baekhyun really didn’t care at all. Instead he picked up one of his pen and threw it at Jongin. It hit Jongin’s head dead-on, yet not that hard to hurt him, just enough to make Jongin let out a soft ‘ow!’ before glaring at Baekhyun.

“You done?” Baekhyun said and without waiting for Jongin’s reply, he took one of his notes that he did last night for their assignment and shoved it to Jongin. Jongin stumbled, and stared aghastly at Baekhyun. Baekhyun only ignored the look and instead started working on the project, and after a while, Jongin also started doing his part quietly, and Baekhyun thanked God for that.

 

 

\---

 

 

They only stopped when Baekhyun’s mom knocked on the door and calling them to eat lunch. Baekhyun didn’t realize how much time had passed since then, but since they were halfway done, he decided that it was enough for today. Besides, he was hungry too, and he just remembered about Jongdae’s party that would be held tonight and he just got a hunch that Jongin would definitely not miss it.

Baekhyun accompanied him to the door after they ate, only to stop at the sight of Chanyeol cleaning his car. Baekhyun stared at the scene, trailing his eyes on his white tank-top and dark blue boxer. It was a lie if Baekhyun said the sight didn’t make him drool, but when he heard a deliberate cough from Jongin, he quickly slapped himself mentally and stepped aside.

Jongin had already done putting on his shoes, and he was staring at Baekhyun blankly. Baekhyun ignored the way he was looking and instead just walked towards the gate. Both of them were silent, Jongin following close behind him.

“Nice view huh?” Jongin suddenly said. So much for silence, Baekhyun thought. He still kept quiet and chose to ignore him. Baekhyun chanced a glance at Chanyeol, and sadly, he immediately noticed Jongin behind him. Jongin waved at the guy, and Chanyeol waved back, albeit relunctantly. He looked at Baekhyun and smirked. “You must really like him huh? You suddenly went all aloof and quiet,” Jongin snickered.

Baekhyun slowly turned towards Jongin and gave him a stink eye.

“What? Cat got your tongue? No bite remarks or something?” Jongin continued prodding him, as if Baekhyun wasn’t capable of burning him back, but today Baekhyun was not in the mood for any of it. Instead, he just smiled sarcastically.

“Aww, I’ve seen that you really miss having my fist up on your face,” Baekhyun said and then raised his eyebrows. “I totally think that a black eye will suit you. People will be thrilled.” He said with a blank face.

As expected, Jongin only cleared his throat and gave him a finger before he went towards his car. Baekhyun ignored the way Jongin deliberately revved the engine for a few seconds before driving off, and when the car was out of sight, Baekhyun finally let out a breathe that he was holding ever since Jongin arrived. Somehow, he felt much lighter now that Jongin was gone, at least from his sight.

Baekhyun turned to enter his house, but then caught sight of someone from the corner of his eyes.

He looked at Chanyeol, who was staring at him probably even before he turned his head. The car was long forgotten, and Chanyeol was still holding the sponge that he used to clean the car. Chanyeol clearly saw what happened between him and Jongin a moment ago, and Baekhyun couldn’t decipher Chanyeol’s gaze from distance.

Not knowing what to do, Baekhyun ended up with just smiling and waving at the guy. And he inwardly let out a sigh of relief when Chanyeol waved back with a smile on his face.

 

 

\---

 

 

It was 11 P.M. His mom had long went to dreamland. Baekhyun stayed lounging in his living room, watching a re-run marathon of Toy Story movies. The area had become quiet saved for two or three vehicles speeding by the residency area.

He picked up his phone and quickly opened his Twitter app and unsurprisingly, a flurry of new tweets came by through his timeline. It was all about Kim Jongdae’s party, and God forbid if adults knew how bad and terrible children these days were corrupted. He scrolled through one or two tweets with pictures, some of them had Kyungsoo on, which, susprisingly seemed to be blending well with the crowd. He smiled at one of the pictures, where Kyungsoo was grinning with Jongdae, who had his mouth wide opened and head thrown back. His arms were around Kyungsoo’s shoulders, and they really looked comfortable with each other.

Baekhyun couldn’t help but smile. He had so many questions to ask Kyungsoo, even though he already caught the whiff of it. He just couldn’t wait to interrogate Kyungsoo this upcoming Monday.

Baekhyun was startled when all of a sudden the doorbell rang. Baekhyun stared at the door, wondering who could it be at this hour. The bell rang again and he finally stood up from his spot.

“Hold on,” he said loudly while unlocking the door and stared bewilderedly when he saw Chanyeol standing in front of the door. “Chanyeol? What are you doing here?” he asked, looking from left to right because he felt that the situation was kind of weird. “Aren’t you supposed to be at Jongdae’s party?” he continued, just because that Chanyeol seemed like he was not going to answer his questions in the near future.

In the end, Chanyeol tilted his head and smiled.

“Well, I didn’t go.” He said. Baekhyun raised his eyebrows questioningly at that.

“Why?” he finally said after a moment. It was kind of weird, because Chanyeol not going to the party was as weird as an elephant suddenly could fly. Chanyeol wasn’t a party maniac like Jongin but he was always there whenever Jongin was around. Knowing that Chanyeol chose to not go was kind of... surprising, to say the least.

Chanyeol tilted his head again and scrutinized Baekhyun. Baekhyun felt a bit weirded out when Chanyeol was looking at him like that, like he wanted to unravel Baekhyun right then and there. Chanyeol continued to stare at him, widening his eyes and getting even closer to Baekhyun’s face. Baekhyun decided that enough was enough and shoved the guy’s face off.

As expected, instead of feeling offended with the action, he just simply laughed it off. Baekhyun couldn’t help but smile at the sight. Chanyeol surely was a one hell of a guy.

After he calmed down a bit, he looked down at Baekhyun and smiled softly. “I knew that you won’t be joining so I decided that I won’t go either,” he explained. Something was off though with his explanation, and both of them knew it. Baekhyun crossed his arms and waited for Chanyeol to continue talking. He saw how fidgety Chanyeol was all of a sudden. He was biting his lips too, but Baekhyun refused to say anything and instead just waited for him.

“And... And I thought it was a perfect time for me to apologize for... you know,” Chanyeol stopped and gestured wildly with his hands. Baekhyun only raised his eyebrows, knowing where this would go but didn’t have enough courage to say it out loud. He only waited, but after a few seconds he decided to take pity towards the guy. He grabbed Chanyeol’s hands and gripped it, catching Chanyeol’s attention.

“That’s...” Baekhyun searched for the right word. He didn’t want to sound too touched and sappy by Chanyeol’s gestures. But in the end he just inwardly sighed and said, “...really sweet of you.”

Baekhyun tried to hold himself from showing how bad was he with all of these, but luckily Chanyeol didn’t seem to sense anything. He even looked more relaxed and his smile brightened, it made Baekhyun’s heart skipped a beat. A soft smile graced his face, and he looked down only to be greeted by the sight of their hands entwining. His smile slowly slipped away, and suddenly he felt awkward around Chanyeol.

Chanyeol must have sensed something was off with Baekhyun, because he quickly pulled his hand away.

“Sorry,” he muttered, looking at anything but Baekhyun and he nearly punched himself in the face. Can this night get any worse than this? Baekhyun couldn’t help but thought bitterly.

Chanyeol cleared his throat, wanting to catch Baekhyun’s attention. The other turned to him, confusion written in his face. Chanyeol took out his car keys and showed it to Baekhyun, where the guy only gave him a questioning look at Chanyeol.

“Well, I was wondering if you’d like to go hang out with me,” he started, feeling a bit nervous when he saw Baekhyun’s blank face. “I, um, I actually really wanted to bring you to some places with my car.” He continued. Baekhyun just pursed his lips before looking at Chanyeol back.

“Chanyeol, you know that it’s already 11 now right?” Baekhyun said. Chanyeol only nodded eagerly, and then his mouth stretched into a face-splitting grin.

“That didn't stop you before,” Chanyeol retorted, and Baekhyun only grinned at the guy. They both knew each other so well already.

“Go wait at the living room while I change,” Baekhyun only said that before walking briskly towards his room, not forgetting to keep it down so that he wouldn’t get caught by his mother.

 

\---

 

Chanyeol and Baekhyun both ended up at the top of the hill 2 kilometres away from their residential area. It overlooked the entire city, which was Baekhyun’s favorite view. Both of them were on the roof of the car, with Baekhyun seated on it and Chanyeol laying on his back. He stared at the city’s view before turning to the side and gazed at Chanyeol instead.

Unlike Baekhyun, Chanyeol loved to stare at the starry night sky. He had always talked about constellations or how far a particular star was with another star and all those astronomy shit. Baekhyun couldn’t care less; Baekhyun wasn’t that interested with those things. But he also couldn’t deny the fact that Chanyeol looked so cute explaining all those stuffs to him, even though in the end Baekhyun only managed to know that Orion was actually really easy to spot.

Just like now, Chanyeol was in his own world; gazing at the night sky with a fond smile on his face. Baekhyun tilted his head a bit, staring at Chanyeol and smiling when he realized how engrossed Chanyeol was with whatever he was thinking. He looked back at the city view, and then he opened his mouth.

“What’s got you thinking so hard?” Baekhyun asked, making Chanyeol blinked as if he just realized that Baekhyun was there with him. He looked at Baekhyun and then at the sky again.

“Nothing.” He replied.

“Really?” Baekhyun squinted his eyes sceptically, and Chanyeol looked back at him with a smile. He got up and adjusted himself to sit comfortably beside Baekhyun. Baekhyun only stared at him before both of them gave a knowing smile. They stared at the view below, when Chanyeol started speaking again.

“I’m really sorry.” He said and Baekhyun only sighed. He knew what Chanyeol was talking about, but he still pretended that he didn’t understand anything.

“About what?”

“You know well enough what I’m talking about.” Chanyeol said, and Baekhyun saw a frown marred on Chanyeol’s face.

Baekhyun only shrugged. He didn’t have much to say about that. Both of them were on edge at that time, and it was not entirely Chanyeol’s fault.

Finally, he only said “It’s not entirely your fault, Chanyeol.” He stopped and turned towards Chanyeol who was already staring at him. He smiled. “I’m sorry too.”

Chanyeol and Baekhyun both looked at the view, Baekhyun gnawing at his lips because deep in his heart, he was hoping that after all that happened Chanyeol would start realizing what he wants from him. He held himself from showing any emotions to Chanyeol and instead just laid down on the car hood and stared at the starry sky.

 

\---

 

It all started when Baekhyun was minding his own business. It was always like that.

After school, Baekhyun would usually go to the little bookshop that took about 30 minutes walk from his school. The one thing that Baekhyun really loved about hanging out there was because it was located in secluded place. Not many people visited it because there was much larger bookstore somewhere near the area and people usually just came there only if they didn’t find the books they desired at the other shop. And also, the owner was nice too and knew him well enough to let him do whatever he wanted to do here.

And that included reading the books in there.

When Baekhyun entered the store, it was empty. He looked for the owner at the counter but he was not there, so Baekhyun guessed he must be at the back. Before he could move though, the owner, who looked like he’s in his mid 50s emerged from one of the shelves. He looked up and smiled brightly upon seeing Baekhyun.

“Baekhyun! You came,” he greeted, and Baekhyun only bowed towards the man with a smile. “What brings you here?” the man asked, and Baekhyun definitely remembered his intention of coming there. He fumbled with his bag before taking out the book that he borrowed a week ago.

The man looked at the book and smiled. He took the book from Baekhyun and glanced at him. “So what are your thoughts about this?”

“Really interesting, to say the least.” Baekhyun said, trying to sound convincing, but when he saw how the man’s eyes turn into a teasing one, he knew that he was busted.

“You hadn’t read it, don’t you?” the man said, and Baekhyun only let out a nervous chuckle. He scratched the back of his neck, turning sheepish.

“I’m... really busy with school. You know, exams are approaching. All that student stuffs,” Baekhyun said. “I actually did read it Mr. Nam. I’m not lying when I said that it was an interesting book.” He continued trying to convince the man when the latter just laughed good-naturedly at him. Mr. Nam patted Baekhyun’s shoulder and grinned.

“That’s okay, Baekhyun. I understand.” He winked at him and Baekhyun only let out a soft sigh before smiling apologetically. “I’m going to put this at the back. Wait here, okay?” Mr. Nam said and walked away from him. Baekhyun waited for a while, eyes searching around the bookstore even though this place was already like a second home for him.

Aside from the bookstore, there was a bakery right across from it. Baekhyun’s eyes that were travelling around the room took a glance at the bakery. He squinted his eyes when he saw a familiar figure. The glasses were kind of dark tinted so he couldn’t see properly, but he still got the feeling that it was someone familiar to him.

Tall, dark hair, huge ears, huge eyes. Chanyeol.

Baekhyun blinked at the realization, and blinked some more when Chanyeol came out from the bakery holding a plastic bag with what possibly could be a box containing a slice of cake. His reaction though... Baekhyun only raised his eyebrows when he saw how sour Chanyeol looked like at the moment.

Curiosity got the best of him, so he took his bag from the floor and started going to the door only to be stopped by Mr. Nam. Baekhyun turned around and saw a bewildered look on his face. He was also holding onto a new book, and Baekhyun guessed he was planning to give it to him so he can read it at home.

Baekhyun bowed at the older man and said, “I suddenly got something to do at home. I’m sorry, I will come back again tomorrow.”

Mr. Nam still looked like he had no idea about what was going on, but he simply nodded. Baekhyun turned around and started to walk away when he spotted another familiar figure at the same spot that Chanyeol had stood a while ago.

He might already missed Chanyeol at this point, yet he couldn’t help but stay glued at the spot.

Kim Jennie stood at the exact spot Chanyeol had stood before, and even from afar he could see that her face was starting to get blotched because of the tears. She started to walk away from the bakery, not knowing that there was a set of eyes staring at her in concentration.

Baekhyun couldn’t help but wonder what really happened at that bakery. It took no genius to know that something definitely occurred between them. Jennie and Chanyeol. Both of them had been caught together these past few days, with rumors that Jennie might had tried to have a chance with Chanyeol. People at school had even started to show excitement over the new couple. Looks like many people would be dissapointed by the news that it was a failure or maybe even rejoiced at the fact that Chanyeol was still a free man.

A free man? Baekhyun had to laugh.

He went back home with a sour heart that day.

 

Apparently it was kind of a big deal that Jennie had asked Chanyeol out. Jennie likes Chanyeol. Jennie wanted to ask Chanyeol if he wanted to go together to some kid’s party that Baekhyun wasn’t bothered to know his name. People were asking if Chanyeol said yes at all to Jennie. If he liked Jennie too. That kind of stuff. School have had been buzzing with that news, that Baekhyun turned even more bitter when the day progressed.

Kyungsoo obviously sensed it, he always did. Yet he didn’t ask anything. They just went through their classes and sat with each other during recess period. They chatted about something for a minute and then the bell rang and they had to go to their respective classes. Chanyeol and Jennie still out of sight.

Maybe he spoke too soon, because when he went to his locker, he saw Jennie, seemingly well and looking like herself. Her makeup seemed thicker than usual though, probably to hide the fact that she cried badly yesterday. She seemed too engrossed with her locker to even realize that someone was staring intently at her. When she turned around and met his gaze, it was too late for him to act all nonchalant. But she just casted him a small smile before walking away towards her class, and Baekhyun only replied it with a hesitant smile.

This is so weird... What actually happened between them yesterday?

 

\---

 

Chanyeol didn’t come to school that day. Usually Baekhyun would just let him be and only texted him to ask if he was alright. Even though it took a lot of internal convincing and incessant rounds of typing and re-typing messages before he decided to just “fuck it” and eventually texted him. He did not care, he just wanted to to make sure whether Chanyeol was okay or not.

Today, it was different. Instead of walking straight towards his house, he crossed the street and pressed the doorbell of Chanyeol’s house. He waited, and when there was no response he pressed it again. This time, the fence shook and slowly slid to the left, making Baekhyun stood there for a moment, trying to take a peek inside.

Chanyeol was rubbing his eyes, yawning in the process and blinked a few times before adjusting his sight towards Baekhyun. He somewhat looked surprised. Baekhyun didn’t had no idea why he would react like that when they literally lived across each other, but still he made his way inside.

“Baekhyun?” Chanyeol said and looked around. “What are you doing here?”

Baekhyun only frowned before schooling his expression into blank face. If he really was going to do this, he got to stay focused so that all this could finish quickly and Baekhyun could continue wallowing in his room wondering what even happened between Chanyeol and Jennie.

“So now I can’t even come to your house?” He intended for it to be a joke, but it came out harsher than he thought. Judging from the look on Chanyeol’s face, he didn’t expect that reaction from him. He bit his lip, mentally debating whether coming to Chanyeol’s house was actually a good idea at all.

“I-I... didn’t mean it that way,” Chanyeol muttered, and Baekhyun saw how he was holding back his sigh. Baekhyun suddenly felt bad. What if Chanyeol was just having a bad day, and him coming here being quite snappy towards him wasn’t really helping? He just wanted to know why Chanyeol didn’t come to school – and maybe he could also dig up what was happening between him and Jennie. Chanyeol rubbed his face and put his arm around Baekhyun’s shoulder, shocking Baekhyun a bit.

“Come on in. I’ll make a drink for you,” Chanyeol urged Baekhyun but was stopped by Baekhyun’s hand. Chanyeol looked at Baekhyun questioningly. Baekhyun bit his lower lip and looked up at Chanyeol.

“I’m sorry.” He said. “I’m just...”

Baekhyun really didn’t know how to continue his words without Chanyeol being suspicious towards him. The whole thing was already questionable enough, because Baekhyun rarely bothered to come to his place. It was always Chanyeol. Chanyeol was always the one who snuck into his house just so they could have a ramen together. It was always Chanyeol that would jump from his fence instead of ringing the bell like any other sane person and hung out at Baekhyun’s yard, ignoring the fact that Baekhyun’s mom could actually see him and assumed that he was trying to break into the house and steal something. It was always Chanyeol who would start doing it first, only then Baekhyun would follow. So seeing him in front of his house, with school uniform still intact on his body, Chanyeol must had thought that Baekhyun would have something important that he wanted to say. Something they couldn’t talk over the phone.

Baekhyun hated how all the things that were happening made him feel this way. Chanyeol and him were not even in a real relationship, for goodness sake. Just the thought of that made him sour. He realized that coming to Chanyeol’s house might be the biggest and dumbest mistake that Baekhyun had ever committed. He needed to run away real quick. But before he could do that, Chanyeol suddenly pinched his chin and made him look up towards him.

“You okay, Byun?” Chanyeol asked, concern dripping off his voice. Baekhyun only nodded before he shrugged Chanyeol’s arm off his shoulders. Chanyeol only raised his eyebrows at that, a bit surprised but he stayed quiet.

“I’m fine,” Baekhyun said with a smile. Or more like a forced one at that. “You know what, I suddenly have to go. Homework...” he trailed off and started turning away, but damn him, Chanyeol quickly caught his shoulder and made him turn around.

Chanyeol was frowning at him. Baekhyun bit his lip again.

“Something’s bothering you isn it?” Chanyeol guessed, and oh wow he really went straight to the point didn’t he? Baekhyun thought to himself. Baekhyun chose to stay quiet though, but it was obvious that Chanyeol was not in the mood for this. “Byun, just tell me if you have something to say. Did anything happened at school?” he asked and stopped, pondering for a moment. His expression changed, from serious to suddenly... hesitation.

“Did... someone said something to you?” Chanyeol asked, and his voice was very soft that Baekhyun was starting to wonder whether Chanyeol even said anything to him. But then he remembered his question, and something clicked inside Baekhyun’s head. He didn’t want to jump into anything but Chanyeol’s expression really gave away everything.

“Why did you ask that?” Baekhyun asked. He was starting to get desperate but he still would try to approach the topic carefully. “Is there supposed to be someone who should be telling me something?” Baekhyun continued, and Chanyeol look stumped for a bit.

Baekhyun could literally see the gears in Chanyeol’s head turning. Baekhyun literally face palmed before he shook his head.

“Nevermind. It’s okay, it’s not that important anyway,” Baekhyun tried to reassure him and quickly walked away from the yard – or at least tried too. Because Chanyeol was again, quick in holding Baekhyun from walking away.

“Baekhyun, really. Just tell me what’s wrong.” Chanyeol said. There was a frown marring his face, but after a moment he sighed. Baekhyun really got no choice but to tell Chanyeol the truth. To ask Chanyeol about it. It gnawed on him and Baekhyun really didn’t want to kept something that he knew would probably damage him inside.

But how was Baekhyun going to break this to Chanyeol without sounding like he was stalking Chanyeol or something like that?

Ah, fuck. Baekhyun let out a devastated sigh and looked up at Chanyeol. He hated doing this, but he also disliked being left in the dark.

“Yesterday, I saw you at the bakery in front of Mr. Nam’s bookshop.” Baekhyun started, hoping that Chanyeol would quickly realized what he was getting at. But even after a few moments, Chanyeol’s face only showed that he was expecting Baekhyun to speak more. Baekhyun could only sigh again – he lost count on how much he had been sighing these days.

“I saw you, with Jennie?” Baekhyun finally said it, and he had to admit that it was like a weight had been lifted a bit ever since he stepped foot here. Even though it was barely anything much.

Chanyeol look baffled with that sudden revelation, but he quickly covered it with a smile on his face.

“Oh, really? I didn’t realize that you were nearby,” he said.

Baekhyun frowned. He really had no idea what was that supposed to mean, but still he won’t stop trying until he got the answer that he deemed convenient enough.

“Yes, really I was nearby. Listen Yeol, I saw Jennie cried at the front of the store,” This is it, Baekhyun went straight to the point. “Did you do something to her?”

Chanyeol gaped at the man in front of him, trying to find the right words but Baekhyun cut him off.

“Okay, let me rephrase that.” Baekhyun looked at Chanyeol. “Did something happened between you and Jennie? Both of you?” Baekhyun said. There he said it, and now he really felt like the burdens had been lifted off Baekhyun’s shoulders. Chanyeol meanwhile, was quiet. He was pursing his lips, like he was thinking about something. Was that too much? Baekhyun couldn’t help but thought about that.

“There’s nothing between us.” Chanyeol said. It was silent for a while, a really awkward one at that. Baekhyun was waiting for Chanyeol to continue, but it was obvious that Chanyeol will stay quiet like that.

“Really? Because I saw her crying-“

“Really, Byun.” Chanyeol cut him off, and Baekhyun saw how his frown had deepened. “There’s nothing about us that you should worry about.” he continued. Baekhyun really didn’t like the look on his face, but he couldn’t say anything about it either. He bit his lip and let out a sigh for the umpteenth times.

“Fine. I guess my eyes were just tricking me then,” Baekhyun said with a bite, and Chanyeol only bit his lip and avoided Baekhyun’s unconvinced eyes. Baekhyun couldn’t help but rolled his eyes. “Anyway, I came here just to see if you’re okay or not. Seems like you’re just doing fine to me,” Baekhyun trailed his eyes up and down, scanning Chanyeol’s body and turned around.

“Guess I’ll just see you around then,” Baekhyun started to walk away, and this time Chanyeol didn’t stop him. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or angered with that fact. Relieved because that really was a painful experience for him, and anger, because Chanyeol really didn’t put any effort to justify what he had done.

Baekhyun couldn’t help but groaned at the thought. God, what was he thinking? Of course Chanyeol wouldn’t do that when he’s not even Baekhyun’s boyfriend. Baekhyun really had to swallow the hard pill, or else Chanyeol would start calling him delusional for thinking that he and Baekhyun were each other’s significant.

Baekhyun couldn’t help but bitterly smiled at the thought.

 

\---

“What’s wrong with you?” Kyungsoo asked as soon as they reached Baekhyun’s bedroom. It’s another week, another day of their annual hang out with each other. Baekhyun frowned at Kyungsoo, wondering why the short guy was asking that kind of question all of a sudden. Kyungsoo raised his eyebrows giving him a pointed look before continuing. “Well, you look off since last week. Does this have something to do with...” Kyungsoo trailed off, hoping that Baekhyun knew what or whom he was indicating about.

And Baekhyun understood what he was trying to say. He only sighed before slumping on his bed, looking at the ceiling.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” He said, and in return Kyungsoo threw a pillow at him. It hit right on his face. Baekhyun only dragged the pillow off from his face before glaring murderously at Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo in return just gave him a pointed look before rolling his eyes.

“You think I’m gonna sit here and let you in whatever misery you’re facing right now? Just tell me what’s bothering you.” Kyungsoo retorted, rolling his eyes again. Baekhyun did the same thing and got up to sit on the bed, facing Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo was slumping on the chair in front of his study table, scrutinizing Baekhyun under his glasses.

Baekhyun waited for a moment before gathering his senses. Then, he looked at Kyungsoo and started telling him everything that basically happened; about his encounter with Jennie and Chanyeol. All the time, Kyungsoo only listened and only cut him when he wanted to ask a question or made some noises like ‘oh’ and ‘what the hell’. When Baekhyun had finished, Kyungsoo was still quiet. So did Baekhyun. Both of them didn’t even glance at each other, instead they were looking at the floor.

“Maybe you should just ask Jennie if you’re really that bothered about it.” Kyungsoo finally said, and Baekhyun only replied with a disbelieving scoff.

“That was such a great idea,” he drawled, and slowly turned his head towards Kyungsoo. “If only we actually ever talked to each other.”

Kyungsoo only rolled his eyes. “You’re so dramatic sometimes. Just go and ask her.”

“No, Kyungsoo. You don’t understand,” Baekhyun groaned and rolled his body to the side so he could properly look at Kyungsoo to justify his reasoning. “If I did go and talked to her, wouldn’t that be really weird? We never talked and even if we did, the topic was about Chanyeol.” Baekhyun cringed for a bit and looked towards the ceilings. “I felt like it was a sore topic for her too. About Chanyeol I mean,” Baekhyun continued.

Kyungsoo went quiet for a while, and if he wasn’t that bothered with thoughts he would have said ‘I told you’ in his face. But he didn’t and he wasn’t planning too.

“Well... you have a point there.” Kyungsoo ended up saying that, and Baekhyun only snorted.

 

“You know, I actually do have an idea.” Kyungsoo said when they already arrived at the bus stop. Baekhyun had offered to give Kyungsoo a ride to his home, but apparently Kyungsoo loved to waste his money on bus ride. That spoiled brat, Baekhyun couldn’t help but thought.

“About what?” Baekhyun only asked, even though he already knew what the other was talking about. There was only an old woman at the bus stop, since it was already 6:30 PM and pretty much everyone had gone home already. Kyungsoo sat on the bench, and nodded as a greeting at the old woman, who only smiled and nodded back, and then turned towards Baekhyun. He shrugged.

“Well, you probably won’t like the idea, but I’m just saying you know,” Kyungsoo started, causing Baekhyun to roll his eyes. He didn’t say anything though and waited for Kyungsoo to continue.

“You know that Jongin is holding a party this weekend?”

“Yeah, what about it?” Baekhyun absent-mindedly said, before something clicked inside his head and he gave Kyungsoo a weird look. Kyungsoo only grinned at him.

“Like I said, I’m just saying.” Kyungsoo said and held his hands in the air. Baekhyun only stared at his friend in disbelief before scoffing.

“No.”

“Well then, have fun wallowing in your misery.”

“Kyungsoo,” Baekhyun whined, but Kyungsoo only glared at him in return. Baekhyun turned quiet and avoided Kyungsoo’s glare. After a while, he sighed in annoyance.

“I still don’t get why you hate the idea of going to parties so much,” Kyungsoo mumbled, and Baekhyun only sent the other a stink eye.

“You hate it too,” Baekhyun muttered back.

“I don’t hate hate it you know,” Kyungsoo bit back, ignoring the fact that there was an old lady with them and there was a possibility that she was judging both of them right now.

Baekhyun only scrunched his nose and pretended to shudder. “Too many bodies. Too much alcohol. Loud. And besides, parties are merely just a lame excuse for all idiots to drink beer and rub up against each other in hopes of distracting themselves from the pathetic emptiness of their meaningless, consumer-driven lives.” Baekhyun stopped only to look at Kyungsoo, who only raised his eyebrows at him. This time, Baekhyun actually grinned at the guy.

“God, you sound just like that girlie from the movie that my mom always forced me to accompany her to watch at night,,” Kyungsoo rolled his eyes. Baekhyun’s grin turned wider and he also added a wink.

“It’s a direct quote from that said movie,” Baekhyun added, and Kyungsoo just rolled his eyes again.

They got disturbed by the sudden cough that the old woman let out, and both of them look up and saw the bus getting nearer. Both of them went quiet after that, Kyungsoo turning to look at him for the last time today.

“You know that you didn’t have to go right?” Kyungsoo said. Baekhyun only shrugged.

“Wasn’t planning too.” Baekhyun replied, and Kyungsoo only smirked. It was half a lie actually, he was desperate to know the reason behind all this, but to that extent? Now that’s really some psychotic-girlfriend moves...

They bid their goodbye after that, and Baekhyun was left staring at the bus that was steadily disappearing from his sight. He let out a breath and said, “Damn it” under his breath. And after that he started to walk home.

 

\---

 

Baekhyun had been thinking about it for days on end about Kyungsoo’s suggestion. While the topic of Chanyeol-Jennie didn’t bother him that much anymore, he still found it a bit weird. Weird because Chanyeol was so adamant on not talking about it. Baekhyun had been trying to get Chanyeol into speaking about it, but he always ended up with the same answer.

“It’s not an important matter, Byun. Don’t worry about it.”

At first, Chanyeol had been patient enough to answer him, but Baekhyun could see that Chanyeol’s patience was slowly running thin with the way Baekhyun kept trying to breach the topic, that he decided to not question him about it anymore.

But it was still bugging Baekhyun. He didn’t even know why but Chanyeol’s answer didn’t satisfy him at all, even the slightest bit. Why did Chanyeol seem like he really didn’t want to talk about this? He was so keen on hiding it, that it made Baekhyun think that Chanyeol was hiding a relationship behind his back. Even though at the back of his mind, he knew that wasn’t true. Chanyeol had already made himself pretty clear that he was not interested in girls as of now, he always told Baekhyun about that. It used to ease his heart a little but now, even when he was reminded by it he still felt antsy.

He desperately needed to know what’s really happening between the both of them, or he would really go insane.

 

 

That day, Chanyeol came to visit his house again at ungodly hours. It was 11 PM, Baekhyun usually was on his way to dreamland already, but he got a message from the latter telling that he would come to his house to hang out, and there they were; on the back balcony watching the dark starry sky with Mongryong sleeping by Baekhyun’s side.

“What’s your plan for this weekend?” Baekhyun asked, remembering about Jongin’s party that Kyungsoo mentioned before. Knowing Chanyeol, he definitely wouldn’t miss it at all, since Jongin was his best friend and they were like blood brothers and all that jazz, Baekhyun couldn’t care less. Chanyeol once said to him that he didn’t like going to party either, even though Baekhyun now suspected that Chanyeol probably just wanted be on his good side. Not that Baekhyun minded anyway, it was his life after all.

Chanyeol only leaned back on his arm and shrugged. “I don’t know yet. Why?”

Baekhyun raised his eyebrow at that. He turned towards Chanyeol. “Really? I thought you will be going to Jongin’s party.” Baekhyun said. Chanyeol only shrugged again, and he seemed like he didn’t have anything to say to that. They fell into silence once again, and Baekhyun felt awkward all of a sudden. Usually, they would have something to talk about, but tonight Chanyeol seemed like he was not really in the mood for a chit chat. He wondered if he should just ask him what was wrong, who knew that he might have the solution for that.

Baekhyun sighed softly. “Are you okay?” Baekhyun asked, and Chanyeol turned slowly towards him.

“Why would I not be?” Chanyeol frowned at that question. Baekhyun only shrugged.

“I just thought that you would at least be ecstatic that your best friend is holding a party.” Baekhyun said a-matter-of-factly, and Chanyeol’s frown deepened.

“He’s not my best friend.” Chanyeol said, somewhat defensively. Baekhyun couldn’t help but raised his eyebrows at his tone. He looked at Chanyeol and tilted his head.

“What’s with the sudden tone?” Baekhyun shifted on his seat so he could look at Chanyeol better. Chanyeol only sighed harshly but he still wouldn’t take a look at Baekhyun.

“I just don’t want to associate with him anymore.” Chanyeol said and crossed his arms. Baekhyun wasn’t sure how to feel about this. He always knew that Chanyeol and Jongin had been kind of inseparable, but Chanyeol never really told how he truly felt about the guy. This.... was something new.

“Chanyeol I don’t understand.” Baekhyun said, reaching out to touch Chanyeol’s shoulder. Thankfully he didn’t brush it away. Instead he let Baekhyun’s hand linger and after a while he took the hand and held it in his palm. The gesture was enough to do ease his heart, but Chanyeol still didn’t say anything. Baekhyun gripped his hand tightly and patted his hand with his other free hand.

“You know you can always tell me everything right?” Baekhyun said, staring into Chanyeol’s face. Chanyeol was quiet for a moment, before he turned to look at Baekhyun with a smile.

“Sure, I do.” He said reassuringly, stroking Baekhyun’s hair and tucked aside the bangs a bit. Baekhyun was a bit displeased with his answer, because it was obvious that Chanyeol was trying to avoid the topic, but Baekhyun didn’t want to push him either, so he left it like that. Instead he put his head on Chanyeol’s shoulder, and both of them watched the sky and enjoyed the quiet moment until it became too chilly for them to hang out, and that it was really late that Chanyeol decided to go back home.

 

\---

 

Obviously that didn’t stop Baekhyun from trying to find the answer. But now he wanted to find out more about what’s really bothering Chanyeol these days, and thus he decided to forget about Jennie for a while. Chanyeol obviously was facing a problem with something, and Baekhyun was determined to find out about it.

With that reason alone, now Baekhyun got out from his car that he parked right at the sidewalk of Jongin’s house. Jongin and Baekhyun lived in different area, it would take exactly 20 minutes from Baekhyun and Chanyeol’s place to reach there. It was 11 PM, there were some familiar faces but Baekhyun got no time to entertain them. The fact that he had to lie to his mom saying that he would have a sleepover at Kyungsoo’s place... He just hoped that if his mother ever called him, Kyungsoo knew what to reply to her.

He made his way inside the house, and thankfully, the crowd was too busy with themselves and having fun that they didn’t notice that the obnoxious Byun Baekhyun was making his way into Jongin’s house.

The first thing that he noticed was how loud the place was. It’s a party after all, but it’s still unpleasant to his ears nonetheless. He also felt stumped and awkward, because now that he was at the place, he didn’t have any idea on how to make his plan work. God, he didn’t even have any plan to begin with, apart from meeting Jongin and asked him himself, even though it was very unlikely of Jongin to even talk to him without throwing insults. He literally had no idea what to do in this party. I should have just told Kyungsoo about this... and planned it accordingly, he grumbled to himself. Still, he just roamed around aimlessly, mingling with sweaty bodies that were dancing in the middle of the room. The smell of alcohol was awfully strong here, Baekhyun couldn’t help but winced in disgust.

It was safe to say that Baekhyun was stuck in there. He got bumped into people more than he liked too, and he rolled his eyes. This is so annoying, he couldn’t help but thought. He needed to find Jongin real quick, before he went berserk and started barking at anyone that came into his view.

“Oh wow, look who’s here!” an unlikely voice sounding too pleased to be true called from behind him. Oh God, he heaved and slowly turned around.

Jongin stood right at the end of the room, before he sauntered closely towards him. He was holding what look like a can of beer in his hand. He didn’t even look tipsy though, not even the slightest, and Baekhyun was thankful for that. Baekhyun only made a face at him but didn’t say anything. Jongin continued to whistle.

“Never thought that Byun Baekhyun would even fancy himself to come to my humble party,” Jongin said and put his hands on his chest. “I’m truly honored.” Jongin continued mockingly. Baekhyun only rolled his eyes before crossing his arms and casted a look at the guy.

“I need to talk to you about something,” Baekhyun immediately said. Might as well just finish it as soon as possible. It was getting pretty stuffy for him to be here, and he needed to get out real quick.

Unfortunately, Jongin didn’t share the same idea. He gave an incredulous look before shoving the can of beer into Baekhyun’s hand. “Nonsense! You’re the special guess here! Just enjoy the party,” he yelled and then raised his hand like he was the winner of this week’s WWE. “Everyone! Byun Baekhyun!”

Baekhyun was too stupefied to even realize what was happening. One second Jongin was belting out his name at everyone that was there inside the room, and then the next second people started yelling in response and the music got louder and louder. Baekhyun made a face, and when he caught sight of Jongin’s smirk, he only gave him a middle finger.

“Hey, you. Here,” he shoved the canned beer towards someone that he barely knew and patted his shoulder. “Just... drink carefully.”

The stranger threw him a weird look before he walked away from the room. Baekhyun looked at where he last saw Jongin, and followed him. It’s been a long time since he stepped into Jongin’s house, and what used to be his second home now felt so foreign to him. Still, he remembered the interior arrangements of the house, and from what he could tell Jongin was heading towards the backyard with a large pool in it. Surprisingly, there was barely any people loitering around there, and Baekhyun would have just went back into the house but then he caught sight of someone familiar.

Jennie? Baekhyun thought, surprised and then concerned when he realized that she was alone. He stared at her back for a moment, wondering if he should stay and talked to her or just go back into the house. He did after all, have something to say to her. But he chose the former, it might be awkward, because one, they rarely talked to each other, plus he didn’t fancy seeing her alone either. She looked a bit under the weather too...

Sighing harshly, he walked back to the pool, slowly approaching her. He didn’t knew where to start all of this, so he chose to deliberately cough to get her attention. Thankfully, she did look back at him, and merely raised her eyebrow before asking, “Yes?”

Baekhyun didn’t know what to answer to that. He must looked really awkward right now and maybe also in a need of something, because she looked kind of concerned. “Do you need something, Baekhyun?”

Baekhyun was stunned that she actually knew his name. But then he remembered that he was kind of popular in school – a bad or a good type of popular, that he didn’t know. And he simply didn’t care about it either. He stepped closer to her and decided to squat next to her. Jennie only looked at him yet never questioning his intention and all.

“I just thought that maybe you need a friend,” he muttered. “You look lonely here.”

Jennie only blinked at him, and honest to God he had never felt this awkward before in his entire life. He went beet red and scratched his cheek. “No offense though... I just thought that maybe you need a familiar face here.”

Jennie looked like she didn’t know what to do, and Baekhyun started to think that approaching her was actually a mistake. He scratched the back of his neck, and slowly stood up.

“Uhh... You know what-“

“Here, Jennie. I got you a water.”

Baekhyun gaped at the person who just sauntered his way from nowhere to them. Chanyeol also looked dumbfounded when he realized that Baekhyun was there with Jennie. Chanyeol only stared at him, making Baekhyun felt even more uncomfortable.

“Baekhyun? What the hell are you doing here?”

“I... uh-“

Something in Chanyeol’s face changed, and he looked briefly at Jennie and frowned at Baekhyun.

“Do you... actually come here just to talk with Jennie?” Chanyeol asked slowly, his tone accusing. Baekhyun frowned at the way Chanyeol talked to him, but he gave an answer anyway.

“W-What... No, I didn’t.”

“Don’t lie to me.” Chanyeol scoffed, and Baekhyun was certain that Chanyeol was trying to accuse him of something.

“No I did not lie to you.” Baekhyun said, indignant. Chanyeol only scoffed and crossed his arms. Baekhyun really did not like the current look on Chanyeol’s face, Chanyeol had never sported an angry look toward Baekhyun. Now that he did, Baekhyun didn’t like it one bit, even more so when Baekhyun didn’t do anything wrong. “What’s all this, Chanyeol? Why do you look so...mad?” Baekhyun whispered the last words, because he couldn’t find the right words to describe this entire situation. He felt even more perturbed when Chanyeol scoffed again and rolled his eyes.

“Really, Baekhyun? I thought you could do better than that.” Chanyeol said.

“Okay I... I really don’t understand what’s going on here?” Baekhyun said and tried to come closer to Chanyeol, but the other only moved even further away from him.

“No, you happened!” Chanyeol said, his voice borderline yelling. Baekhyun could only look bewilderedly at him. “What the hell are you exactly doing here, Byun? Do you felt dissatisfied to the point that you have to come here and ask Jennie yourself about what is going on between me and her? Is that so?” Chanyeol continued.

To say Baekhyun was shocked that Chanyeol actually figured out what he felt was a total understatement, but he’s not going to show it on his face. Instead, he concealed his shock and tried to approach Chanyeol again. But, Chanyeol only backed away again.

“Chanyeol, I was just worried about you. You look so out of yourself lately.” Baekhyun explained, and tried to gauge Chanyeol’s reaction. Luckily, he went quiet, and Baekhyun heaved a sigh of relief before continuing. “I’m here because I wanted to meet Jongin. I just got a feeling that whatever is happening to you, it must have something to do with-“

“Why do you care?” Chanyeol cut off, his face void of any emotion. Baekhyun went quiet, unsure of what to say to Chanyeol knowing that at this point, he wouldn’t believe nor listen to anything he said. The thought made his heart hurt a lot. “Why do you care, Baekhyun? We’re not even in a relationship or anything. Hell, I don’t even know you that much.”

Baekhyun went quiet again, because he was truly speechless with what Chanyeol had really said towards him. Not in a relationship? I mean I guessed he was partly true about that, but not knowing each other? That hurts a lot.

Baekhyun only shook his head and gave a pained smile. “You didn’t mean that at all, Chanyeol. I know you.” Baekhyun muttered, staring at Chanyeol and ignoring the fact that there was a crowd that had started to surround them. He didn’t care about what people were going to say about this, and how the fact that this felt all too familiar.

“Is that the same thing you said towards Jongin two years ago?” Chanyeol suddenly said, and all of a sudden Baekhyun saw red.

It all passed in a blur, but the next thing he knew, his hand felt a stinging sensation and Chanyeol was on the floor, writhing while holding his face. He looked up and was about to glare at him, only to get shocked at the sight of Baekhyun’s red eyes.

Baekhyun was shaking badly, and tried to keep calm. He tried really hard to hold his tears from falling, but when he caught sight of Jennie’s shocked face and Jongin’s blank one, he couldn’t help but bit his lip and let out a bitter chuckle.

“This is exactly why I hate parties,” Baekhyun mumbled to himself, before he started making his way outside. And by force, everyone who gathered around the pool started to make way for Baekhyun to walk past them. He stopped when he was right beside Jongin and only gave him a blank look, before he disappeared inside the house and made his way outside to his car and started driving back home.

The ride from Jongin to Baekhyun’s area should take only about a couple of minutes, but he ended up being home at late hours just to ease everything in his heart.

 

\---

 

The school the next day was kind of a bummer for Baekhyun, knowing that he was the center of attention, again. Everywhere he went people were all staring at him, just like the day when he and Jongin started to split up. Back then it was a well-known fact that Baekhyun and Jongin were friends, but now they were even more bewildered that Chanyeol and Baekhyun actually exchanged few words.

“Hey, Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo reached out to him when he was already at his locker and only gave him a look, before he suddenly went to hug him. It was kind of shocking to see that Kyungsoo did it in the first place, but alas Baekhyun really appreciated the gesture. Baekhyun only gave him a pat on the back before disentangling from the hug.

“What’s that for?” Baekhyun asked, knowing exactly the reason why, but he still asked anyway because he had no other topic to talk about. Kyungsoo only shrugged and started dragging Baekhyun towards their class.

“I’m truly sorry for even suggesting the idea in the first place. It was awful from the very start, and now all of these things happened...” Kyungsoo grimaced, and Baekhyun only smiled bitterly.

“Don’t be. It was my choice anyway.” Baekhyun tried to reassure him, but the look on Kyungsoo’s face made him sigh in frustration. He knew that it was a really bad choice, but Baekhyun didn’t like it either when people casted him a pity look, like they knew that from the very start it would end up bad. In this case, Kyungsoo looked guilty and sympathy for him, which made him feel even worse.

Baekhyun only patted Kyungsoo’s shoulder and said, “Really, don’t feel bad about it. Like I said, it was my choice.”

Kyungsoo only huffed and shook his head. “That lanky dude can go suck a dick. What was he even thinking?” Kyungsoo fumed, and Baekhyun only kept quiet. By now, they were walking towards their classroom. “Getting worked up for nothing. Tch,” Kyungsoo mumbled, annoyed. Again, Baekhyun kept quiet, because he really didn’t know what else to say. He also was obviously not in the mood to talk about anything, and Kyungsoo realized that, so he also kept quiet after that.

 

And it went like that all throughout the day, only occasionally talk to Kyungsoo and spending his entire recess period at the library, hiding in between the shelves and staring at nothing in particular. After spending the entire night, crying his heart out, he figured that he honestly needed to sort his mind slowly. He really wanted to be alone, not even Kyungsoo could be in his sight no matter how much the latter had tried to comfort him.

He really just needed to be alone to comfort himself.

Baekhyun got to admit, the topic about him and Jongin was still a sore spot for him, even though how much he said and showed himself to people that he already moved on from that. Jongin... he had always been nothing but a nice person and a good friend. From when they were in middle school, where they used to played lightsaber swords together in his room to high school, where Jongin started to learn drinking and hanging out with much ‘cooler’ friends, and when he realized how boring it was being friends with Byun Baekhyun, that he started ignoring him until now so they became complete strangers who ended up loathing each other.

Baekhyun not even once had feelings towards Jongin that indicated whether he liked him or anything like that. Jongin was his best friend, and Baekhyun was just one clingy person at that time. Jongin was starting to get recognition, and people started to notice how weird it was that Baekhyun always kept himself glued together with Jongin. Baekhyun knew that he was getting restless because of the way people talk about them, but Baekhyun still couldn’t find any reason for him to feel like that. They were just friends, Jongin used to feel proud and at ease knowing that Baekhyun was beside him all the time. Now, he started avoiding Baekhyun and telling him to go away to ‘make some new friends’ he had said, just so people wouldn’t see them together.

Baekhyun was dumb too; an idiot at that time. He thought he could salvage everything. Mend the broken relationship, all that. But school sucked. Being a teenager sucked. People changed, and it’s the worst feeling ever. One second, he was begging Jongin to be his friend again, and then the next thing he knew he was getting ridiculed by him in front of the entire school.

It used to be such a big trauma for him, because he was merely 15 years old at that time, still naive and growing.

He was 17 now, and although all of that happened two years ago, and that everyone had already moved on from it, he was obviously not. Because he still felt like he was hurting. Even hearing it from other people made him uncomfortable, but he knew that some people did respect him enough not to ever mention about it; at least in front of him. Kyungsoo had been nice enough and tried to be his friend after all those things, and a year later Chanyeol came through, with that goofy smile of his, carrying his poodle dog like it was a human baby.

He likes Chanyeol; he really do. Chanyeol never tried to hurt his feelings or even made him angry, he always tried his best to give everything to Baekhyun, to make him happy, comfortable enough to be with Chanyeol to the point that it only took him a few months for Baekhyun to really start opening up towards him. Baekhyun didn’t care that he was one of Jongin’s friend, didn’t care when he was there when Jongin started to change, didn’t even care when he also was there when all the Jongin-Baekhyun fiasco happened. Baekhyun didn’t care at all, because he really, truly do like Chanyeol. Loves Chanyeol.

Baekhyun trusted Chanyeol so much, that he didn’t expect Chanyeol would even dare to say what he said at the party last night. People didn’t lie when they called Baekhyun a bit dramatic; this was one of his moment, but he had his own reason. This was his reason.

With a heavy sigh, Baekhyun got up from his place and walked out from the library when the warning bell started to ring.

 

\---

 

Three days later, he got the shock of his life when Jennie suddenly appeared beside his locker. He was just minding his own business – as always – and was taking out his stuffs from the locker and when he closed the door, he jumped when Jennie’s face appeared right beside it.

“Fuck, you surprised me,” he couldn’t help but cursed out loud. He only gave her a sceptical eye while she turned sheepish.

“Sorry, I... I just really need to talk to you.” Jennie said and gave him a smile that slowly turned into a grimace. Baekhyun only raised his eyebrows, before sighing inwardly and shrugged.

“Yeah, okay sure. Meet me after school or whatever.”

“I was hoping if we could talk now.” Jennis quickly cut in, now looking unsure. Baekhyun only stared at her blankly before sighing harshly.

“Look, if you’re going to talk about what happened last weekend, then no. I’m not interested.” Baekhyun said. It was true, he didn’t even want to hear nor mention about it, let alone meeting the person that caused all of this to happen (i.e. the person that was standing before him now). He was about to turn around when Jennie stopped him again.

“Baekhyun, me and Chanyeol, we are just friends!” Jennie yelled a bit, causing some people to turn towards them. Baekhyun saw how Jennie bit her lip and glared at some people who were trying to eavesdrop. “It’s a long story but we really are just friend. I-I...” she stuttered all of a sudden, and Baekhyun felt concerned all of a sudden.

“I... I like Jongin,” she whispered timidly, looking down. Baekhyun only looked at her, unsure about how he should react over this. Jongin is indeed a good looking guy and has his own charms, it’s not a surprise that everyone, everyone would fall for him. She seemed to take a deep breath and gathered herself before looking back at Baekhyun.

“I confessed to him a while ago... but he turned me down of course.” Jennie chuckled, albeit bitterly. “He turned me down the same way that he did to you 2 years ago, except it was in front of the entire basketball team so, less humiliation I guess.” She attempted to laugh, but then slowly it turned into another grimace. Baekhyun only pursed his lips, still didn’t know what exactly he should say or do.

“I-I’m so embarrassed. I didn’t know what to do, so I ran away and ended up at an unknown place.” Jennie continued. “Chanyeol ended up following me, and he tried to comfort me. Said that I reminded him of someone, and he thought he didn’t want to make a second mistake. We had been friends after that.”

“Second mistake?” Baekhyun couldn’t help but pointed that out. Baekhyun already got the feeling it was somehow about him, but he still wanted to be sure. Jennie just shrugged helplessly.

“I’ve asked him, but he didn’t tell me anything.” Jennie looked up at him. Her eyes seemed like she knew something though, and Baekhyun only avoided her gaze.

“Why... are you telling me this?” Baekhyun asked after both of them went silent for a while.

“Because Chanyeol didn’t mean anything that he said that night Baekhyun.” Jennie came closer towards Baekhyun, making him scoot himself away a bit. Jennie ignored the gesture and said, “He was just pretty stressed out with Jongin. And then he mentioned about you feeling curious about me. He just didn’t want to tell you because he was afraid that somehow you would be reminded with... that.”

Baekhyun kept quiet, only looking at Jennie with conflicted feelings. A part of him felt flattered that Chanyeol still took care of his feelings, but a part of him still felt hurt over what Chanyeol had done to him, particularly that night at Jongin’s house.

“I was hoping that he could actually tell this by himself, but... something happened at his household.” Jennie said quickly and looked up only to see Baekhyun’s face had gone worried. Before Jennie could continue Baekhyun suddenly cut her off.

“I’m really sorry, but I need to go.” Baekhyun quickly said and made his way towards his class, trying to avoid everyone in the process. When he was out of Jennie’s sight, he quickly turned around and padded his way towards the back of the school.

He really didn’t like the idea of skipping school but he reckoned this was emergency, so when he arrived he threw his bag over the wall and slowly but successfully climbed the wall then immediately ran when he reached the ground.

 

 

He was panting really hard by the time he arrived right in front of Chanyeol’s house. He didn’t even bother to drop by his house knowing there’s no one going to be there. Instead he rang the bell quite impatiently and waited for the intercom to blare out Chanyeol’s voice asking who it might be.

To his surprise, the gate screeched and it opened slowly, and then he saw Chanyeol coming out from his house wearing only his pajama pants and a t-shirt. He looked like he barely had gotten any sleep, Baekhyun couldn’t help but felt worried at the sight. Chanyeol stared at him for a moment, before finally he let a small smile to grace his face.

“Hi,” he greeted slowly, like he was unsure and also tired. Baekhyun wondered what he truly felt inside.

Baekhyun didn’t know what he really wanted to say, but he knew that staying silent won’t do him any good. He figured out that he needed to reply the same thing as Chanyeol, so he reciprocated with a simple ‘Hi’ too.

It was awkward, really awkward. It was just like their first time being together. Except even worse. Now that Baekhyun was here he realized that he didn’t know what he wanted to talk about with Chanyeol. It was just an instinct of him to go and run to Chanyeol when he heard Chanyeol had a problem. He always wondered if the reason why he didn’t attend school this week was because of him, but Jennie had just confirmed that he got a problem in his house, and Baekhyun didn’t think twice before he decided to see Chanyeol with his very own two eyes and confirmed that Chanyeol was indeed okay.

Baekhyun cleared his throat and averted his gaze down when the silence was obviously too long and suffocating for him to handle. Baekhyun tried to rack his brains into figuring out words that he wanted to say, but Chanyeol beat him off.

“Jennie told me that you ran off from school, and that the reason was you might be coming here,” Chanyeol said and scoffed softly. “She was right, you really ran away to come here.”

“She said that something had happened at your house. That’s why you didn’t come to school for 3 days. 4 including today,” Baekhyun said and tried to laugh it off, but both of them knew it was fake. It was quiet again for a moment, both of them avoided eye contact and they even stood a bit far away from each other. This was definitely not quite what Baekhyun expected this to be, but it’s still better than the last time they met.

“I-I guess everything’s good then?” Baekhyun asked slowly. It was painful to say it out loud because it was obvious that there was an invisible wall blocking them, but he didn’t know why he really needed to say something.

After a while, Chanyeol finally gave a response and shook his head.

“No,” he muttered, eyes casted down. Baekhyun was even more concerned now and he took a step forward. He wanted to say something when Chanyeol continued. “My dog just died. I just... want to grieve in peace I guess.” He said slowly and looked up at Baekhyun.

Baekhyun only gaped at him. That’s all? He thought that it was really a major problem – not like a pet’s death was a minor problem but he really thought that something big big happened to him to the point that he really won’t be able to go to school. Maybe Baekhyun was just being dramatic, but he was just really worried despite what really happened between them.

Baekhyun is indeed a dumbass that’s for sure.

“Oh I... I thought something really terrible happened with you. I mean, like to you not-“ Baekhyun blabbered but then he sighed. “Forget it, I’ll just go.” Baekhyun said when he got stopped by Chanyeol’s hand on his shoulder. He turned around and what greeted him was the unreadable look on his face. Baekhyun only kept quiet, knowing that Chanyeol had something to say. He just had to wait for it.

“I think... I want to take a break from you,” Chanyeol said, slowly but surely.

Baekhyun didn’t even realize he had stopped breathing for a moment until he let out a choked breath and noticed his chest had deflated. He couldn’t help but let out a disbelieving laugh. Did what Jennie said to him just now was all lies? Did Chanyeol really cared about him or was it all just a plan so Baekhyun could be tricked again?

“Why?” it ended up as a whisper, and he saw Chanyeol sighed heavily before reaching for Baekhyun’s hand. If Baekhyun had any energy left he would shake his hands off, but Baekhyun was too focused on how to protect his heart from breaking anymore further. And he hated himself for noticing how warm and comforting Chanyeol’s gesture was, despite everything that had happened.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. It was me,” Chanyeol explained with a bitter smile. “I have a problem with Jongin, but I let it out on you. And for that I deeply wanted to apologize to you.” Chanyeol brushed his bangs aside and let his eyes roam around his face freely. “I didn’t mean what I said to you that night. I didn’t knew what was wrong with me that day. I knew you still got affected by that topic, but I still said it. I’m such an asshole to you.”

Baekhyun realized that Chanyeol was indeed shaking, and Baekhyun put his hands on his shoulders to calm him down. Chanyeol took a deep breath and tried to compose himself. Baekhyun deemed it was enough for Chanyeol and tried to gather his thoughts.

“Chanyeol listen here,” Baekhyun started. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Chanyeol.”

“It’s not okay!” Chanyeol said, voice still slow but there was a hint of desperation. Baekhyun went quiet again. “I’ve never meant to hurt you. Never had the intention too, but look what happened.” Chanyeol shook his head. “I’m just so stressed lately, I’m really sorry I let it out all on you.”

Baekhyun only listened the entire time, never intending to cut him off. He wished that he could tell Chanyeol that it’s okay. That Jennie already told him everything and that he understood. But at the same time he knew that was a lie. He’s still not okay, and he knew that Chanyeol had some issues with Jongin.

“Do you even plan to tell me what’s actually going on between you and Jongin?” Baekhyun finally asked in a small voice. Chanyeol was quiet for a moment, seeming to ponder for a few seconds before he slowly shook his head. Baekhyun tried to conceal his face from showing how disappointed he was with Chanyeol’s answer.

“That was something that I have to fix by myself.” Chanyeol said. When Baekhyun stayed quiet, Chanyeol pinched Baekhyun’s chin so he could take a look at him. “I’m sorry, this might sound selfish to you but this is all for me to handle.”

“I’m not going to break up with you. I just need to solve some things.”

“And you’re still not gonna tell me about that ‘thing’?” Baekhyun asked with finality, and with Chanyeol’s apologetic face, he nodded. Baekhyun nodded too, trying to comprehend everything. Maybe Chanyeol was right. He also needed some time to truly forgive him. But maybe Chanyeol was wrong too. Because he would miss him a lot and more.

Baekhyun knew that whatever happened after that, Chanyeol would still stay. Because judging by the way he kissed him after that, Baekhyun knew that Chanyeol felt the same thing as him too.

 

\---

 

Three months later, Baekhyun was happily seated at the secluded spot in the library, reading Note to Self that he actually bought from Mr. Nam instead of borrowing it this time. It was recess, and he needed some alone time for himself since the school was still buzzing with the news about Kyungsoo and Jongdae. Baekhyun felt genuine happiness for them and wished nothing but the best for both of them.

Baekhyun would have continued reading in peace if not for the annoying whistle that would be disrupting the tranquillity once in a while. It sounded really close to his ears, and he already tried to search for the source of the sound, but he found nothing. And now his patience was running thin.

“Okay, if you’re really not going to shut up then I’m going to kick your ass.” Baekhyun said, loud enough that the person whistling could hear him but not too loud that he would get kicked out by the librarian. “Who the hell are you? Do you realize we’re in library?” Baekhyun said again, and unsurprisingly, the whistling stopped. Baekhyun sighed in relief and resumed his reading, but not too long until he heard a deliberate cough. Baekhyun sighed in annoyance and looked up just to see Chanyeol standing beside him. Baekhyun gave him a disbelieving look and Chanyeol turned sheepish.

“Sorry if that annoys you,” Chanyeol said, and Baekhyun rolled his eyes.

“Damn right you are,” Baekhyun mumbled. He closed the book and patted the floor, asking Chanyeol to sit next to him. “What are you doing here, by the way?”

“Well, I was looking for you at our secret place-" Chanyeol gave him a cheeky look that resulted in Baekhyun rolling his eyes. "-but you’re not there so I went to the field and I still didn’t catch any sight of you so I went to Kyungsoo and asked him where would you be, which lead me to here,” Chanyeol explained, grinning widely. Baekhyun only casted him a look before rolling his eyes again, albeit playfully. He went back to read his book again but then Chanyeol interrupted him again.

“Anyways, I was wondering if you’re free this Saturday?” Chanyeol asked, and Baekhyun didn’t know why Chanyeol looked kind of nervous all of a sudden. Baekhyun raised his eyebrows and pondered for a moment.

“Well, I think I’m free that day. Why?” Baekhyun stared curiously at Chanyeol. Chanyeol only shrugged before scooting closer towards Baekhyun and pinched his chin. It made Baekhyun’s heart swell and a smile bloomed on his face. Chanyeol seemed to like doing that gesture to him.

“We’re gonna go on a date.” He said and his breath caressed his face. Baekhyun never realized how close their position had gotten. Baekhyun blinked and tilted his head.

“Really?” Baekhyun said, voice bordering in disbelief and teasing. “This is not another one of your ‘make-up’ dates right? Because I’m kind of tired with it.” He continued, whereas Chanyeol only laughed.

“No, and what do you mean by make-up dates?”

“Well make-up dates is like when you brought me to some place and we just sat together quietly and then you’re all sad and sappy because of stuffs that happened three months ago which by the way,” Baekhyun held his hand up in the air when it looked like Chanyeol wanted to cut him off. “I already forgive you and it was already buried deep in my head and besides, it’s not entirely your fault so yeah.” Baekhyun finished it with a raise of his eyebrow, judging but at the same time playful.

Chanyeol only raised his eyebrows and gave him a look. “No it’s not.” Chanyeol said and pinched Baekhyun’s cheek. Baekhyun scrunched his face and tried to slap Chanyeol’s hand away, but he didn’t budge and instead pinched another cheek of his. Baekhyun only rolled his eyes and finally gave up on dismissing his hand. Chanyeol only smiled fondly, displaying his dimple and finally letting go of Baekhyun’s cheeks.

“This time, let’s date for real.” Chanyeol said after a moment of silence. Baekhyun stared at him in confusion.

“This time, let’s just date like how other people does. No more ambiguous, complicated relationship. No more so-called friends with benefits. Let’s date. Be my boyfriend for real and date me.” Chanyeol said, all in one breath, leaving Baekhyun breathless. His heart skipped a beat, two beats and before he knew it, it thumped more violently. Both of them were silent, with Baekhyun staring wide eyed at Chanyeol still not believing what he just heard. Chanyeol looked entirely flustered though, and he scratched the back of his neck.

He sighed. “Please don’t be mad at me.”

It was a mumble, but Baekhyun still could hear him. He raised his eyebrows, about to ask what Chanyeol was saying when all of a sudden Chanyeol closed the distance and kissed him square on the lips.

It’s not a new thing; they did kiss a few times. In fact, a lot more now that they already reconciled. But this time, for Baekhyun, the kiss felt special. He felt like this kiss really marked something between them, and that Chanyeol was telling him something. Baekhyun kissed him back, putting his hand on Chanyeol’s shoulder and tilted his head a little to the side to deepen the kiss.

Baekhyun knew that Chanyeol was smiling in delight when he did that, but he didn’t care. Chanyeol did the same and kissed him until Baekhyun felt he needed to catch up on air and he broke the kiss. Their forehead touched each other’s and after a while, Chanyeol let out a bashful laugh.

“Well, that was very entertaining to see.”

Both of them turned their heads just to see the librarian staring at them with judgemental eyes. From the corner of his eyes, he saw Chanyeol gulping slightly.

“Please, continue doing your deed in library where clearly there’s no one will going to listen or see you.” The librarian continued with a bored face. If Baekhyun didn’t know any better, she seemed like it was a common thing for her to catch people doing the do in the library.

Baekhyun dragged Chanyeol to stand up and bowed.

“Sorry, we’re leaving now.” Baekhyun mumbled and pulled Chanyeol along with him.

When they were out in the hallway, Baekhyun and Chanyeol both went quiet and they looked at each other. After a moment, couldn’t help but stifle their laughter.

“Well, that was something.” Chanyeol said with a wide grin. Baekhyun only smiled and trailed his eyes on their entwined hands. Baekhyun couldn’t help but play with their hands, wondering how cute their hands looked when wrapping each other’s.

“So, is that a yes?” He heard Chanyeol inquired and he hummed in reply, looking up at Chanyeol. Chanyeol only brushed the stray bangs away from Baekhyun’s eyes and looked hopefully at him. “My question earlier.” He only said that.

Baekhyun’s smile slowly slipped away from his face, and so did Chanyeol’s. But then he smiled the brightest and laughed at how dumbfounded Chanyeol currently looked.

“Of course, silly.” Baekhyun said merrily and tip toed so he could give Chanyeol a kiss.

There were some students loitering around the hallway, and when the scene unravelled between their eyes, most of them had their jaws hanging. Baekhyun opened his eyes halfway through the kiss and frowned. He broke out from the kiss and glared at everyone around them.

“What? Never seen boys kissing before?” Baekhyun yelled, and after that people started to scurry away, trying to mind their businesses yet at the same time taking a peek at Baekhyun and Chanyeol. Chanyeol was unfazed by this though.

“Well, I have to go. Class is about to start.” He said. Baekhyun was still frowning that Chanyeol couldn’t help but laughed. He just pecked Baekhyun’s lips one last time and said, “I will see you after school then.”

Baekhyun only sent Chanyeol away with his eyes. But then he caught sight of Jongin, staring from the distance. Baekhyun stayed rooted on his place when Jongin started walking towards him, and thankfully, he just nodded at him in silent greeting and walked away. Baekhyun only stared at his retreating back, and walked towards the same direction as Jongin to go to his class.

Baekhyun wondered what Chanyeol had in store for him. What he did know though, that it’s going to be the best experience Baekhyun would ever have.

He couldn’t wait.


End file.
